Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The World Beyond
    The World Beyond
    The World Beyond
    Ebook53 pages44 minutes

    The World Beyond

    By Ray Cummings

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The old woman was dying. There could be no doubt of it now. Surely she would not last through the night. In the dim quiet bedroom he sat watching her, his young face grim and awed. Pathetic business, this ending of earthly life, this passing on. In the silence, from the living room downstairs the gay laughter of the young people at the birthday party came floating up. His birthday—Lee Anthony, twenty-one years old today. He had thought he would feel very different, becoming—legally—a man. But the only difference now, was that old Anna Green who had been always so good to him, who had taken care of him almost all his life, now was dying.
    Terrible business. But old age is queer. Anna knew what was happening. The doctor, who had given Lee the medicines and said he would be back in the morning, hadn't fooled her. And she had only smiled.
    Lee tensed as he saw that she was smiling now; and she opened her eyes. His hand went to herswhere it lay, so white, blue-veined on the white bedspread.
    "I'm here, Anna. Feel better?"
    "Oh, yes. I'm all right." Her faint voice, gently tired, mingled with the sounds from the party downstairs. She heard the laughter. "You should be down there, Lee. I'm all right."
    "I should have postponed it," he said. "And what you did, preparing for it—"
    She interrupted him, raising her thin arm, which must have seemed so heavy that at once she let it fall again. "Lee—I guess I am glad you're here—want to talk to you—and I guess it better be now."
    "Tomorrow—you're too tired now—"
    "For me," she said with her gentle smile, "there may not be any tomorrow—not here. Your grandfather, Lee—you really don't remember him?"
    "I was only four or five."
    "Yes. That was when your father and mother died in the aero accident and your grandfather brought you to me."
    Very vaguely he could remember it. He had always understood that Anna Green had loved his grandfather, who had died that same year...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOzymandias Press
    Release dateJul 2, 2016
    ISBN9781531286453
    Author

    Ray Cummings

    Ray Cummings (born Raymond King Cummings) (August 30, 1887 – January 23, 1957) was an American author of science fiction literature and comic books. Cummings is identified as one of the "founding fathers" of the science fiction genre. His most highly regarded fictional work was the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom published in 1922, which was a consolidation of a short story by the same name published in 1919 (where Cummings combined the idea of Fitz James O'Brien's The Diamond Lens with H. G. Wells's The Time Machine) and a sequel, The People of the Golden Atom, published in 1920. Before taking book form, several of Cummings's stories appeared serialized in pulp magazines. The first eight chapters of his The Girl in the Golden Atom appeared in All-Story Magazine on March 15, 1919. Ray Cummings wrote in "The Girl in the Golden Atom": "Time . . . is what keeps everything from happening at once", a sentence repeated by scientists such as C. J. Overbeck, and John Archibald Wheeler, and often misattributed to the likes of Einstein or Feynman. Cummings repeated this sentence in several of his novellas. Sources focus on his earlier work, The Time Professor, published in 1921, as its earliest documented usage.

    Read more from Ray Cummings

    Related to The World Beyond

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Joke

      Sep 1, 2020

      Although best known for his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury was also a prolific writer of short stories, having published his first while still a teenager. This previously unpublished story likely dates to 1950, the year The Martian Chronicle

      5 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      A Hard Man To Forget

      Jan 8, 2024

      A Hard Man To Forget
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Duplex

      Jun 9, 2020

      I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart. My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey,

      21 min read

    • Article

      The Music Of Angels

      Sep 1, 2018

      The Music Of Angels
      7 min read

    • Article

      Righteous

      Jan 22, 2019

      Righteous
      8 min read

    • Article

      We’re All Just Butterflies

      Sep 29, 2020

      We’re All Just Butterflies
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Stonemason’s Wife

      Sep 1, 2020

      JOLINA HAS been hearing voices of men she’s never met. Voices like water, clear and cold, eddying at the back of her mind. They’re not real. She knows this. As in, she’s not crazy. They’re only the voices she’s heard on the phone, voices of men who b

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Quick Thrill

      May 20, 2021

      A Quick Thrill
      4 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      Happy Endings

      Sep 1, 2023

      Happy Endings
      5 min read

    • Article

      Appreciating Hate

      Sep 10, 2021

      Felix thought of his mind as though it were artwork – a painting. His skull was the frame, the canvas inside the frame was the grey matter, the applied paint was his education, and that insubstantial feeling evoked by the art piece was his consciousn

      7 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Way She Was

      Nov 17, 2023

      The Way She Was
      15 min read

    • Article

      Plan of ACTION

      Oct 3, 2023

      Plan of ACTION
      6 min read

    • Article

      Too BAD

      Aug 30, 2022

      Too BAD
      6 min read

    • Article

      Planof Action

      Oct 5, 2021

      Planof Action
      6 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Begin Again

      Jun 14, 2022

      My grandfather came to live with me. There was nowhere else for him to go. What had happened to all his children? Death, decay, exile—I hardly know. My own parents died of pain. But I must not be too gloomy, at the beginning, or you will leave me, an

      6 min read

    • Article

      J. Jezewska Stevens

      Dec 15, 2017

      The party was a failure. I can’t even tell you what a failure it was. There are no words. Only a great pain in my chest when I wake up. On the veranda. It’s better when I sit in the chair. Oh, but then I can see around. The gauzy curtains, pushed by

      15 min read

    • Article

      The King’s passion

      Aug 11, 2021

      The King’s passion
      11 min read

    • Article

      Healing

      Apr 8, 2020

      Healing
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Temporary Arrangement

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Temporary Arrangement
      19 min read

    • Article

      The King’s passion

      Aug 11, 2021

      The King’s passion
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Plagues Steph Cha

      Sep 29, 2020

      The Plagues Steph Cha
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The World Beyond

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The World Beyond - Ray Cummings

      THE WORLD BEYOND

      Ray Cummings

      OZYMANDIAS PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2016 by Ray Cummings

      Published by Ozymandias Press

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      ISBN: 9781531286453

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II

      CHAPTER III

      CHAPTER IV

      CHAPTER V

      CHAPTER I

      THE OLD WOMAN WAS DYING. There could be no doubt of it now. Surely she would not last through the night. In the dim quiet bedroom he sat watching her, his young face grim and awed. Pathetic business, this ending of earthly life, this passing on. In the silence, from the living room downstairs the gay laughter of the young people at the birthday party came floating up. His birthday—Lee Anthony, twenty-one years old today. He had thought he would feel very different, becoming—legally—a man. But the only difference now, was that old Anna Green who had been always so good to him, who had taken care of him almost all his life, now was dying.

      Terrible business. But old age is queer. Anna knew what was happening. The doctor, who had given Lee the medicines and said he would be back in the morning, hadn’t fooled her. And she had only smiled.

      Lee tensed as he saw that she was smiling now; and she opened her eyes. His hand went to herswhere it lay, so white, blue-veined on the white bedspread.

      I’m here, Anna. Feel better?

      Oh, yes. I’m all right. Her faint voice, gently tired, mingled with the sounds from the party downstairs. She heard the laughter. You should be down there, Lee. I’m all right.

      I should have postponed it, he said. And what you did, preparing for it—

      She interrupted him, raising her thin arm, which must have seemed so heavy that at once she let it fall again. Lee—I guess I am glad you’re here—want to talk to you—and I guess it better be now.

      Tomorrow—you’re too tired now—

      For me, she said with her gentle smile, there may not be any tomorrow—not here. Your grandfather, Lee—you really don’t remember him?

      I was only four or five.

      Yes. That was when your father and mother died in the aero accident and your grandfather brought you to me.

      Very vaguely he could remember it. He had always understood that Anna Green had loved his grandfather, who had died that same year.

      What I want to tell you, Lee— She seemed summoning all her last remaining strength. Your grandfather didn’t die. He just went away. What you’ve never known—he was a scientist. But he was a lot more than that. He had—dreams. Dreams of what we mortals might be—what we ought to be—but are not. And so he—went away.

      This dying old woman; her mind was wandering?...

      Oh—yes, Lee said. But you’re much too tired now, Anna dear—

      Please let me tell you. He had—some scientific apparatus. I didn’t see it—I don’t know where he went. I think he didn’t know either, where he was going. But he was a very good man, Lee. I think he had an intuition—an inspiration. Yes, it must have been that. A man—inspired. And so he went. I’ve never seen or heard from him since. Yet—what he promised me—if he could accomplish it—tonight—almost now, Lee, would be the time—

      Just a desperately sick old woman whose blurred

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1