Well, that was terrifying. What a story! I’m shocked I’ve never heard of this one before. While scary and foreboding, I loved it.

George and Lydia live in a futuristic house with their two kids. The house does everything for them. Gets food, shoots them through air portals to move them around the house, does their hair, shines their shoes, etc. Their children have a “nursery” where they are able to conjure up scenes and the room creates a lifelike vision of the landscape/environment. George and Lydia hear screaming in the nursery and go to find the landscape of an African veldt. Lions are finishing up eating something. George finds an old wallet of his with blood on it. The parents start to worry that the kids are conjuring the dangerous veldt too often. After calling in a psychologist to inspect the nursery they decide to take a vacation from the house, fearful that the nursery has altered their kids’ psyches. The psychologist says to move out all together. He’s very worried about the kids. He also finds Lydia’s scarf in the nursery with blood on it. The parents confront the kids and they are not pleased, whining and begging to get one last time in the nursery.

I won’t spoil the ending but MAN if this wasn’t Bradbury foreseeing the effect of technology on children’s behavior, I don’t know what is. For a story published in 1950, this is an eerily accurate premonition. It depicts a world further along than we are, but you can see this happening. Bradbury puts a truly terrifying spin on it. Yet, it’s not so unbelievable. I bet it was in 1950 but not now. I LOVED this story. So inventive, so creative, so on-point of where people’s connection to tech might go. You should definitely read this if you haven’t already. One of my faves of the year so far.