Raymond F. O'Kelley

Name: The Man Who Lived
Author: Raymond F. O'Kelley

The Man Who Lived (1941)

Summary

“The Man Who Lived”, published in 1941, is a work by Raymond F. O'Kelley. It explores elements such as Penderby, Fleet Street and Trafalgar Square.

Quotes from The Man Who Lived (Raymond F. O'Kelley)

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ There was no blood, so far as Penderby could see. But she might have been murdered; so might the old man, only a few feet away; and Penderby turned and ran.
He stopped short to avoid a bundle of rags and what had been a slum harridan.
He was frightened, now. He retreated to the middle of the street, and looked swiftly up and down. Two more bodies were about fifty yards away. And one was that of a policeman.
"What in thunder is this?" Penderby asked aloud. "Am I awake, anyway?"
He undeniably was, and the bodies still were there.
"They can't be asleep, all together," he said. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ It was as Penderby looked round Trafalgar Square, somber and a little frightening, that he felt his first bewilderment, apart from the shocks of surprise, of the day. He sat on a balustrade outside South Africa House, and tried to plan the suddenly monstrous-appearing future.
He could not stay in the vast charnelhouse London had become. A day or two more, as he already had warned himself, and plague would ride every breath of air. But his food was in London; he could not turn farmer at short notice, and the supplies in stores and hotels would last very long. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ He drank the toast, sent bottle and glass sliding and spinning along the waxed floor, and ran down the stairs. He was exhilarated as never before; he was triumphant.
The Strand, London's most famous thoroughfare, which leads from Trafalgar Square to Fleet Street, was strewn with dead. They had fallen at bus stops, in late-shutting stores (lights in some of these burned still) , on pedestrian crossings, in busses and automobiles that had crashed against one another and in places formed a barrier from wall to wall. Here and there, wheels had squeezed blood into oozy patches. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ The man to whom all London—if not all Britain—had passed dropped the paper. For he had noted that purity of the air. He wondered how long it would last. The street contained enough corpses to start a plague after another day or so. He could not bury them, not to mention the rest of the eight million in Greater London.
"I suppose," Penderby decided, "I'll have to leave. Well, it wouldn't take long to get out by car."
But whither? The countryside, in all likelihood, would be as perilous as the city; no district in Britain was thinly-populated. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ Penderby did not enter any of them. He noted a blue-uniformed group in a corner, and remembered that drivers, conductors, and inspectors had gathered at the spot.
There was no sound of trains. One, bearing travelers from the Continent who had landed the evening before, had drawn in. Some doors were open, but the cars still were full.
Outside were taxi-men dead, newsboys dead, policemen dead. Two bodies in German-cut clothes had fallen into a gutter; they were those of refugees, probably.
Horror and alarm gained brief mastery, and Penderby fled the place. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ The Man Who Lived
By RAYMOND F. O'KELLEY
He stepped from his Pimlico lodging house—into a London as dead as Babylon.
Hunger and the sight of plenty drove Edward Penderby from the streets at 9 o'clock the night of that September 10. London's heat, pulsing at wall and roof all afternoon and evening had made the Lupus Street attic oven hot. He opened the window, and the effort left him panting.
Penderby was tired in body and mind, tired as only the workless on his futile quest can be. His underwear clung. The soles of his feet seered burning. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ So, he found, were the bodies of the policeman and the well-dressed youth nearby.
Five bodies! And not noticed, apparently till now.
"I don't give a damn," Penderby muttered. "Let someone else be a witness. I'd get no thanks for it, I'll bet."
On he went. A pair of cats had died on the steps of a house. What he assumed to be the body of a man lay on the other side of the street. "Let him lie there!"
He found himself counting the dead on Warwick Way. They seemed natural after a time; most, at a distance, were dark bundles that matched the drab street. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ Bicycles, cars and bodies blocked the way every few yards; so Penderby traveled slowly. He passed the houses of Parliament and Government buildings in Whitehall.
Trafalgar Square contained more dead than even the space outside the depot. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ It is imperative that contributors search the renewal databases and ascertain that there is no evidence of a copyright renewal before using this license. Failure to do so will result in the deletion of the work as a copyright violation. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Raymond F. O'Kelley, The Man Who Lived (1941)

“ There were bodies at nearly half the desks, and one had fallen beside the half-opened door of a telephone booth, in which the instrument hung the full length of the cord. A head pressed the keys of a typewriter on a desk near, and some of the type-bars were in midair. Penderby pulled a sheet of paper from the machine. The word "Churchill" and the number "3" were in the top left corner.
He read:
"Mr. ”

Raymond F. O'Kelley

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