I was inspired as a kid by Ray Bradbury's story Kaleidescope in his Illustrated Man anthology. The idea of an astronaut, distraught over the lack of meaning in his life, having his life end by being ejected by accident from his spacecraft and then falling into Earth's atmosphere as a fiery meteorite, and then having a child on the Earth "wish upon a falling star", just struck me as so inspiring.
It is reaffirming to know that we have meaning even when it seems life doesn't amount to a hill of beans sometimes. Life matters even in the simplest of ways. We do matter to people after all.
I felt compelled to create an account on this board and post my response. Kaleidoscope has always been a favorite story of mine. The strange hopelessness of the situation and the wonderful imagery have always stuck with me, long after having read the story.
I became a Bradfury fan ages before I was even aware of who he was, due to my fondness for old science fiction radio plays. There are plenty of Ray's fantastic stories that were adapted wonderfully for a program called X Minus 1, Kaleidoscope being one of the better ones (Actually, come to think of it Kaleidoscope was a part of Dimension X, which later became X Minus 1, but that's beside the point). I remember listening to the Veldt when I was twelve or thirteen and falling in love with the art of the radio play. There's always something to be said for imagination
Kaleidoscope is one of RB's best stories, and lends itself well to dramatisation - in fact, he has written a version of it for stage, and there have been several radio adaptations. Parts of it have been borrowed by others...I seem to recall there's a part of the film DARK STAR that has a scene slightly similar to Kaleidoscope.
And, of course, life imitated art a few years ago when a space shuttle burned up on re-entry, creating fiery shooting stars just like in Kaleidoscope.
PS: spalmeri and jutberg, please head over to the "Where are y'all from" thread and tell us where y'all are from!
