{"id":6598,"date":"2023-04-02T12:26:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T12:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6598"},"modified":"2023-04-02T12:26:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T12:26:41","slug":"the-wheel-by-john-wyndham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6598","title":{"rendered":"The Wheel by John Wyndham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Wheel<\/em><\/strong> by John Wyndham (Startling Stories<\/em>, January 1952) opens with an old man dozing at a farm wake up to see his grandson appear with a box that is riding on four improvised wheels. Before he can say anything the mother appears and screams, which brings the rest of the family. The mother then orders the boy, Davie, into the barn. When she tells the grandfather that she would never expected that sort of behaviour from her son, he says that if she hadn\u2019t screamed no-one would have had to know. She is scandalized.
The reason for this puzzling behaviour becomes obvious when the grandfather subsequently goes to talk to Davie. He asks the boy to say his Sunday prayers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThere,\u201d he said. \u201cThat last bit.\u201d
\u201cPreserve us from the Wheel?\u201d Davie repeated, wonderingly. \u201cWhat is the Wheel, gran? It must be something terrible bad, I know, \u2019cos when I ask them they just say it\u2019s wicked, and not to talk of it. But they don\u2019t say what it is.\u201d
The old man paused before he replied, then he said: \u201cThat box you got out there. Who told you to fix it that way?\u201d
\u201cWhy, nobody, gran. I just reckon it\u2019d move easier that way. It does, too.\u201d
\u201cListen, Davie. Those things you put on the side of it\u2014they\u2019re wheels.\u201d
It was sometime before the boy\u2019s voice came back out of the darkness. When it did, it sounded bewildered.
\u201cWhat, those round bits of wood? But they can\u2019t be, gran. That\u2019s all they are\u2014just round bits of wood. But the Wheel\u2014that\u2019s something awful, terrible, something everybody\u2019s scared of.\u201d\u00a0 p. 118<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The grandfather\u2019s further explanations to Davie make it apparent that they are living in a post-nuclear holocaust world, and one where there is a religious prohibition on technology. The grandfather explains that the priests see devices like the wheel as the work of the Devil, his way of leading mankind astray, and, when they find such inventions, they not only burn them but their inventors too. He then tells Davie that when the priests question him the following day, he must tell them he didn\u2019t make the wheels but that he found them. Then, after a final observation about progress being neither good nor evil, the grandfather gives the boy a hug and leaves.
The final section (spoiler) sees the priests arrive to find the grandfather busily making two more wheels. They are horrified, the box is burnt, and the grandfather is taken away. The ending is nicely understated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In the afternoon a small boy whom everyone had forgotten turned his eyes from the column of smoke that rose in the direction of the village, and hid his face in his hands.
\u201cI\u2019ll remember, gran. I\u2019ll remember. It\u2019s only fear that\u2019s evil,\u201d he said, and his voice choked in his tears.\u00a0 p. 120<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A short piece but a solid one.
*** (Good). 2,700 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wheel by John Wyndham (Startling Stories, January 1952) opens with an old man dozing at a farm wake up to see his grandson appear with a box that is riding on four improvised wheels. Before he can say anything the mother appears and screams, which brings the rest of the family. The mother then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1544],"tags":[476,24,1545,1549,1548,12,61,1546],"class_list":["post-6598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-wyndham","tag-476","tag-3-2","tag-john-wyndham","tag-post-nuclear-apocalypse","tag-religious-oppression","tag-short-story","tag-startling-stories","tag-technology-prohibition"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6598"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6603,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions\/6603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}