Leonard explains that he is a writer, but the car marks it down as no profession. The car asks him his name, followed by his profession. After all, no need for the police since everyone is inside at night and crime is declining. Mead speculates that this might be the last police car in the city, since the last election cut the force down from three to one. Although he tries to explain what he’s doing, the car threatens to shoot him if he does not comply. The metallic voice coming from inside the car orders him to stop and put his hands up. A police car stops him, although he never sees the person inside the car-if there is a person inside the society is heavily automated. While normally his walks pass without event, this night he is not alone. The city outside is very run down, the streets damaged and the sidewalks worn and unrepaired. It is implied that he is one of, if not the only, walkers left in society, as everyone else is inside watching television. He will pause, observe briefly, and then move on before anyone inside is startled by the presence of a person outside.
THE PEDESTRIAN CHARACTERS WINDOWS
He likes to look into the windows along his way, seeing the vague flickers of life and light within. He lives by himself, having never married, and so his nightly walks help him fill his time. He is the only pedestrian near his home, and has never seen another person out during the many hours that he has walked.
As “The Pedestrian” opens, the year is 2053 and Leonard Mead is out for another one of his lonely evening walks. In 1989, “The Pedestrian” was adapted into an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, starring David Ogden Stiers as Leonard. Exploring themes such as the dangers of progress, society’s treatment of outcasts, and the potential of technology to stop serving and become a danger, “The Pedestrian” is considered a predecessor to Bradbury’s most famous work about a repressive futuristic society, Fahrenheit 451.
THE PEDESTRIAN CHARACTERS SERIES
This leads to a series of events where his unusual behavior places him in danger in a society unable to understand those who differ from the norm. He has never seen another pedestrian, and neither has the police car that finds him one night on his walk. Leonard, however, enjoys going for a nightly walk in the ruined city, something that is inexplicable to those around him.
Focusing on Leonard Mead, an ordinary-seeming man, the story takes place in 2053 when television has taken over the world to such an extent that most people rarely leave their homes. First published in 1951 in the news magazine The Reporter, it was later collected in Bradbury’s anthology T he Golden Apples of the Sun. “The Pedestrian” is a short story by American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury.
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