"Richard Brautigan - in_watermelon_sugar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brautigan Richard)

Sundown

after I finished writing for the day it was close to sundown
and dinner would be ready soon down at ideath.
I looked forward to seeing Pauline and eating what she would
cook and seeing her at dinner and maybe I would see her after
dinner. We might go for a long walk, maybe along the aqueduct.
Then maybe we would go to her shack for the night or stay
at ideath or come back up here, if Margaret wouldn't knock the
door down the next time she came by.
The sun was going down over the Piles in the Forgotten
Works. They turned back far beyond memory and glowed in
the sundown.

11

The Gentle Cricket

I went out and stood on the bridge for a while and looked
down at the river below. It was three feet wide. There were a
couple of statues standing in the water. One of them was my
mother. She was a good woman. I made it five years ago.
The other statue was a cricket. I did not make that one. Somebody
else made it a long time ago in the time of the tigers. It is
a very gentle statue.
I like my bridge because it is made of all things: wood and
the distant stones and gentle planks of watermelon sugar.
I walked down to ideath through a long cool twilight that
passed like a tunnel over me. I lost sight of ideath when I passed
into the piney woods and the trees smelled cold and they were
growing steadily darker.

12

Lighting the Bridges

I looked up through the pines and saw the evening star. It
glowed a welcoming red from the sky, for that is the color of
our stars here. They are always that color.
I counted a second evening star on the opposite side of the
sky, not as imposing but just as beautiful as the one that arrived
first.
I came upon the real bridge and the abandoned bridge. They
were side by side across a river. Trout were jumping in the river.
A trout about twenty inches long jumped. I thought it was a
rather nice fish. I knew I would remember it for a long time.
I saw somebody coming up the road. It was Old Chuck coming
up from idea™ to light the lanterns on the real bridge and the
abandoned bridge. He was walking slowly because he is a very
old man.