From Ray Bradbury's "Rocket Man."
.....The message came the next day.
The messenger gave it to me and I read it standing on the porch. The sun was setting. Mom stood in the screen door behind me, watching me fold the message and put it in my pocket.
"Mom," I said.
"Don't tell me anything I don't already know," she said.
She didn't cry.
Well, it wasn't Mars, and it wasn't Venus, and it wasn't Jupiter or Saturn that killed him. We wouldn't have to think of him every time Jupiter or Saturn or Mars lit up the evening sky.
This was different.
His ship had fallen into the sun.
And the sun was big and fiery and merciless, and it was always in the sky and you couldn't get away from it.
So for a long time after my father died my mother slept through the days and wouldn't go out. We had breakfast at midnight and lunch at three in the morning, and dinner at the cold dim hour of 6 A. M. We went to all-night shows and went to bed at sunrise.
And, for a long while, the only days we ever went out to walk were the days when it was raining and there was no sun.
Also, I was not the only one who thought of this old science fiction story by Jerome Bixby: "It's a Good Life."
Here's an excerpt:
"My God, be quiet!" hissed Mary Sipich, and pushed her toward one of the men, who put his hand over her mouth and held her still.
"--Happy birthday, dear Danny." Dan sang. "Happy birthday to me!" He stopped and looked down at Pat Reilly. "Play it, Pat. Play it, so I can sing right ... you know I can't carry a tune unless somebody plays it!"
Pat Reilly put his hand on the keys and began Lover in a slow waltz tempo, the way Anthony liked it. Pat's face was white. His hands fumbled.
Dan Hollis stared over at the dining-room door. At Anthony's mother, and at Anthony's father, who had gone to join her.
"You had him," he said. Tears gleamed on his cheeks as the candlelight caught them. "You had to go and have him ..."
He closed his eyes, and the tears squeezed out. He sang loudly, "You are my sunshine ... my only sunshine ... you make me happy ... when I am blue ..."
Anthony came into the room.
Pat stopped playing. He froze. Everybody froze. The breeze rippled the curtains. Ethel Hollis couldn't even try to scream she had fainted.
"Please don't take my sunshine ... away ..." Dan's voice faltered into silence. His eyes widened. He put both hands out in front of him, the empty glass in one, the record in the other. He hiccupped and said, "No--"
"Bad man," Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.
The glass and record thumped on the rug. Neither broke.
Anthony's purple gaze went around the room.
Some of the people began mumbling. They all tried to smile. The sound of mumbling filled the room like a far-off approval. Out of the murmuring came one or two clear voices:
"Oh, it's a very good thing," said John Sipich.
"A good thing," said Anthony's father, smiling. He'd had more practice in smiling than most of them. "A wonderful thing."
"It's swell.., just swell," said Pat Reilly, tears leaking from eyes and nose, and he began to play the piano again, softly, his trembling hands feeling for Night and Day.
Anthony climbed up on top of the piano, and Pat played for two hours.