The Long Rain

"The Long Rain" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury.

A lieutenant leads three other survivors of a rocket crash — Simmons, Pickard, and another man — through a gray Venusian jungle in endless heavy rain that renders them sleepless and nervous.

In the middle of the night Pickard begins shouting and firing his gun, then becomes catatonic with his mouth open to the sky, starting to drown.

By morning Simmons can no longer hear anything but the rain and, realizing that he will soon go insane, tells the lieutenant to leave him to commit suicide.

He stumbles toward it, nagged by urges to begin drinking the rain, and opens the door to a scene of luxury: freshly prepared sandwiches and hot chocolate, a change of uniform, and a phonograph in mid-song.

[2] His presentation of Venus as being rain-soaked has been proven wrong by more modern science, but was in line with the scientific views of the time.