It's Such a Beautiful Day
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It's Such A Beautiful Day is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Star Science Fiction Stories 3 in 1954 and later appeared in Asimov's collection Nightfall and Other Stories (1969).
The story followed, and was inspired by, the novel The Caves of Steel, but reverses the situation.
Set in the year 2117 (it is not specified if this is Common Era or Atomic Era), the story presents District A-3, a newly built suburb of San Francisco, and the world's first community to be built entirely using Doors, a method of travel via matter transference.
When the Door that transfers him from home to school fails, Richard (Dickie) Hanshaw takes a dislike to the method and starts to wander outside in the unfamiliar open, exposed to the elements. When he catches a cold, his Mother is horrified and takes him to see Dr. Sloan, a psychiatrist, afraid that her son's wanderings are signs of a mental abnormality.
Despite his own misgivings, Dr. Sloan invites Dickie to go for a walk with him in the open, and learns to understand and appreciate the boy's dislike of moving around by matter transference and his newly acquired interest in the open air.
Dr. Sloan advises Dickie's mother not to disapprove so heavily of it, to treat it as if it's no big deal, with the idea that that will make it less of a forbidden fruit and soon Dickie will lose interest in it and turn his attention to more "normal" interests. At the conclusion of his last consultation with Dickie and his mother, Dr Sloan, succumbing to the rebel in him, says "You know, it's such a beautiful day that I think I'll walk."
| Nightfall and Other Stories |
| Nightfall | Green Patches | Hostess | Breeds There a Man...? | C-Chute | In a Good Cause- | What If- | Sally | Flies | Nobody Here But- | It's Such a Beautiful Day | Strikebreaker | Insert Knob A in Hole B | The Up-To-Date Sorcerer | Unto the Fourth Generation | What is This Thing Called Love? | The Machine that Won the War | My Son, the Physicist | Eyes Do More Than See | Segregationist |
