There Will Come Soft Rains

"And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I."

- The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

 

 

Today is August 4, 2026

 

If you have not seen Grave of the Fireflies, try to find the original Japanese cut, the one that doesn't spoil the ending and dull its clout. Speaking of which, spoiler alert farther down this page. But we're starting with the weather. It was lovely until a couple of months ago. Sure, globally the warming trend continued, but in the couple of locations I keep an eye on, 2025 all the way to the early summer of '26 marked the longest stretch of sane weather in a couple of decades. We had a couple of slowly defrosting springs, a real winter with real winter freeze, a stormy last fall ending in biting sleet, a healthy amount of rain restocking the local hydrosphere after previous years' droughts, the works. Local works.

 

Every time I'd talk to my relatives and they'd remark on the cold I'd have to remind them: no, you're older than me, you should remember! This is how it's supposed to be, this is how winter felt in my childhood forty years ago, when we used to make snow forts and they'd last a week instead of not bothering with even a snowman that melts by afternoon. No, don't complain about a cold snap, March weather is supposed to slingshot insanely between freezing and balmy, not rocket straight to 30C all at once! And then in April and May they'd start commenting how nice the weather is for long walks and I'd remind them, well, just wait, 'cause the climate's still set to boil over, all the extra heat hasn't gone anywhere, that little chill, we're gonna pay it off pretty soon. And now it's pretty soon in July and August, and last year's bill's come due. Europe and Canada are getting torched by wildfires and Californians are holding their breath knowing they're next and it's pointless to remind everyone this new normal never had to happen.

 

Today is August 4, 2026

 

In Takahata's brilliance, Grave of the Fireflies' sneakiest gut punch comes not from ladling on shock value gruesomeness, but from painting its grim theme in Ghibli's habitually lush palettes. As the story progresses and our protagonists' plight grows ever grimmer, no matter how sapped they are of vitality, nature around them insists on lavishing its beauty and cheer upon other observers. Sapphire skies overlook verdant pulchritude and blade and leaf vibrate with newfound hope, perversely mocking the children's suffering. That perverse beauty shining through in Teasdale's poem as well gives the crucial counterpoint to Bradbury's automated house in There Will Come Soft Rains, penultimate story in the classic Martian Chronicles.

 

As in The Veldt, Bradbury's automated house, by doing everything for you, becomes symbolic of a system which though it appears to merely remove the drudgery of physical existence, instead overshoots into fabricating an environment feeding base impulses but where the intent and intellect which should rule such baser drives play no part, where appetites and habit formation run amok.

 

Today is August 4, 2026

 

But, like Teasdale or Takahata, I think our thousand-times-great-grand-pere of fabulism cheated his audience by holding a better option in the wings, by allowing readers a feeling that things could have been different if better decisions had been taken, that beauty can even exist to be experienced. The story was, as I said, after all, penultimate in its collection, followed by a glimmer of hope for a fresh start and conviction not to repeat old mistakes. No such hope exists. We're seeing the self-destruct quotient in the Drake equation, and it's not bombs or killer robots; it's consumer demand. The subhuman masses opt for football and empty calories and social competition, never advancement. Intellect subverted toward animal goals empowers the animal to destroy intellect. Every other human on the planet is a knife at your throat.

 

Today is August 4, 2026