“Twenty-five years later, I wrote ‘The Fire Balloons,’ a story in which a number of priests fly off to Mars looking for creatures of good will. It is my tribute to those summers when my grandfather was alive. One of those priest was like my grandpa, whom I put on Mars to see the lovely balloons again, but this time they were Martians, all fired and bright, adrift above a dead sea.”
—Ray Bradbury in a final essay, fittingly called “Take Me Home,” which is laden with nostalgia, and unerringly beautiful.
