One of my favorite The Twilight Zone episodes is "Time Enough at Last" which stars the brilliant Burgess Meredith as Henry Bemis. Henry is a lover of books who is constantly belittled for his love of reading. One day, Henry takes his lunch break in the bank vault where he works to get some undisturbed reading time; meanwhile, an “H-bomb” is dropped, killing everyone except Henry, who was safe inside the vault.
Henry deals with the loneliness of being the “last person alive on Earth” and loses all hope--that is, until he sees the public library. Henry realizes he finally has “time enough at last” to read all the books he has always dreamed of reading.
Of course, that’s not the end of the tale, and since we are dealing with The Twilight Zone, I’m pretty sure you can imagine all is not well for Henry. I won’t give away the ending but you can borrow this episode and many more Twilight Zone episodes from the library.
Watch a portion of the television show below (or, watch the full episode):
You can find full episodes of The Twilight Zone on CBS's website.
Have a question for Free Library staff? Please submit it to our Ask a Librarian page and receive a response within two business days.