A Pail of Air

by Fritz Leiber

"A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber is a science fiction short story published in 1951. Earth has been torn from the Sun by a dark star, freezing the atmosphere solid. A ten-year-old boy narrates his family's survival in a makeshift shelter, where they gather pails of frozen oxygen to breathe. They maintain a small fire for warmth in a world plunged into absolute darkness and cold, waiting alone on a dead planet.