"Jerry Davis - Death's Head Reunion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

She smiles. "You're nervous too."
"No, uh ... well, yes. I am."
"Feel my hands," she says, reaching out. He takes them. "They're sweating," she tells him.
"I can't tell." He laughs. "Mine are sweating too, so I'd never know."
"First date jitters," she says. "It's been a long time since I've been nervous about a first
date."
"Yes, me too." He neglects to tell her that it's been a long time since he's had any kind of
date, period.
"This is a date, right?" she asks, suddenly concerned.
"Yes," George says quickly. "I mean, I consider it one."
"Our first date." She smiles. "You make me feel like a teenager again."
"The, uh ... the first of many, I hope." To George his own words sound clumsy and
awkward, and he inwardly cringes, sure he's made a stupid remark.
Bernadette moves her Marilyn lips just perfectly, an embarrassed smile. "I hope so, too,"
she says.
They move from the bar to dinner. Dinner goes well. I can't believe this, George thinks.
I'm sitting across the table from Marilyn Monroe, holding her hand, and she likes me. Me!
Bernadette is thinking, What a wonderful person. So warm, so genuine. And he likes me
for who I am inside, not because of the body I happen to be wearing. This is the kind of man
which with I want to spend the rest of my life.
"Would you like to go to a movie or something?" he asks.
"I want to have your babies," she tells him.

#

For the first time ever, George finds his life doesn't suck. During the Calamity Awards,
George wins as best editor in his medium. His earnings increase 10-fold overnight.
Tremendous pressures are at work on those few who fit in the term, "middle-class," forces
that are either trying to make them poor or rich. It's an inherently unstable position. Most
become poor and commit suicide. Others, like George, join the ranks of the three percent that
control ninety-seven percent of the money.
Money makes money. More money makes even more money. The "rich" class, like the
"poor" class, is a very stable position. While an earthquake is killing several thousand poor
people on the Gold Coast, and a tidal wave is wiping out hundreds of thousands of poor
people in Asia, George and Bernadette are moving into her new condo in space. The city is

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jerry%20Davis%20-%20Death's%20Head%20Reunion.htm (4 of 8) [10/18/2004 3:24:45 PM]
Death's Head Reunion

called "Eutopia." The designers are very proud of the name (they made it up themselves)
because it's pronounced "Utopia" but it's spelled like "Europe" --- which is a very chic place,
at least inside the heavily guarded walls.
There are no heavily guarded walls in Eutopia. There are no locks on the doors in Eutopia.
Many homes have no doors at all. Nobody in this place is going to steal anything from
anybody, and even if they did, everyone is so rich that nobody would care. Even the servants
are rich. The ones that aren't rich aren't alive --- they're mechanical.
George and Bernadette are ecstatic. The trees are all real. The air is pure. The grass never
needs to be mowed. There are no flies or mosquitoes. There are no cockroaches, mice, lice,
gnats, rats, bats, ants, silverfish or moths. Everything is perfect. Everything, George thinks,
except one thing. He still hates his reflection in the mirror.