Do We See Each Other?

5 May 2025

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books, current events, History, reflections

I know that what I’m writing here this evening is going to sound foolishly sentimental and maybe even a little spooky, but I was struck by this weird experience I had tonight. It was just a little odd and too fortuitous. I’m not going to talk at any length about the politics of it, just the strangeness.

We have these two books by Ray Bradbury, and when I was a kid, I loved his science fiction stories. I read many of them, but never like the one I read tonight.

The way this started was I was looking for something to do. I thought about watching old reruns of The Red Green Show on YouTube, which always struck me as funny when I watched them long ago. I still do, but couldn’t get into it tonight.

I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels which, as always, were reruns. I was not even interested in the X-Files reruns and I’m a fan. And I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing any more in-your-face commercials about total body deodorant.

So, I picked up the hefty paperback of a big collection of a hundred of Ray Bradbury’s short stories, entitled oddly enough, “Bradbury Stories.” I just opened up the book with no particular story in mind and it fell open right to one I’d never read before, “I See you Never.”

It’s all of 3 pages long and it’s about a Mexican immigrant named Mr. Ramirez. He’s been brought by the police to the front door of the rooming house where he’s been living on a temporary visa, which has been revoked. He’s just there to say goodbye to his landlady. He’s being deported and has this sad conversation with her on the doorstep. He just keeps telling her in broken English, “I see you never.” The landlady, Mrs. O’Brian (no accident she has an Irish name, of course) just says repeatedly that he’s been a good tenant and that she’s sorry. Then he leaves with the police. She goes back inside and can’t finish her dinner with her family and realizes she’ll never see Mr. Ramirez again.

There’s a much better summary and analysis than mine written by a professional reviewer. This story was published back in 1947 and is set in the historical context of post WWII America.

I hate politics, and I’m not going to say anything specific about how this little story struck me with its irony given what’s going on this country right now. I was just looking for a little science fiction distraction and instead got irony. I didn’t go looking for this and I’ll be brutally frank—I actively avoid political news and I hate like hell to get reminded of it every day. All I did was open a damn book. I wish I had never seen this story.

I guess maybe that’s what I get for my avoidant approach to certain things. How’s that for a Mental Health Awareness month event?

2 responses to “Do We See Each Other?”

judy thompson

May 24, 2026 at 2:51 pm

Sometimes fiction mirrors life too painfully, and when you find something like this, it’s a lot like having a nailgun poised to go off in your head. I remember the title, believe it or not, since I think I’ve read almost everything Bradbury ever wrote. And he does have a way of tatooing his stories on your brain, doesn’t he.
The first thing I ever read of his was “The Lighthouse” and it jarred me so much I read it three times in a row, then typed it out (no idea why), and I still remember it to this day.

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1. James Amos
  
  May 24, 2026 at 3:26 pm
  
  You know, I searched both collections I have of Bradbury’s stories. I couldn’t find “The Lighthouse.” But I found one titled “The Fog Horn.” Two guys are the keepers of the lighthouse and they get to talking about some ancient giant sea monster out there in the deep that responds to the Lighthouse fog horn by bellowing at it. The monster and the fog horn sound alike. It’s a prehistoric monster that destroys the lighthouse because it’s not what the monster is looking for–which is a mate or at least one of its own kind. I can’t remember if I ever read that story before. I think it’s about loneliness. Does it sound familiar? Could that be the story you call “The Lighthouse”? I wonder if this story might have been published under different titles.
  
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