"Thomas M. Disch M. - Come to Venus Melancholy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

COME TO VENUS
MELANCHOLY
Thomas M. Disch




Is that you, John? Did someone just come in the door? Of
course, it wouldn’t be John. Not after all this time. It was because I
was startled I said that. If you’re there, whoever you are, do you
mind if I talk to you?
And if you’re not there?
Then I suppose you’ll mind even less.
Maybe it was just the wind. Can the wind lift a latch? Maybe
the latch is broken. Though it feels all right now. Or maybe I’m
hallucinating. That’s what happened, you know, in the classic
sense-deprivation experiments. But I guess my case is different. I
guess they’ve rigged me up some way so that can’t happen.
Or maybe—Christ, I hope not! Maybe one of those hairy
caterpillar things has got inside. I really couldn’t stand
that—thinking of the whole house, thinking of me, crawling with
those things. I’ve always hated bugs. So if you don’t mind, I’ll close
the door.
Have you been trying to talk to me? I should have told you
it’s no use. I can’t hear and I can’t see. I’m broken. Do you see,
there in the larger room, in each corner, about five feet from the
floor, how they’ve been smashed? My eyes and ears. Can’t they be
fixed somehow? If it’s only a matter of vacuum tubes and
diaphragms, there should be things of that sort downstairs. I’m
opening the trapdoor now—do you see? And I’ve turned the lights
on in the storeroom.
Oh hell, what’s the use?
I mean you’re probably not there, and even if you are, he
probably thought to smash any spare tubes that were left. He
thought of everything else.
Ah, but he was so handsome, he was really so handsome. He
wasn’t tall. After all, the ceiling here isn’t much over six feet. But
he was well-proportioned. He had deep-set eyes and a low brow.
Sometimes, when he was worried or puzzled, he looked positively
neanderthal.
John George Clay, that was his name. It sounds like part of a
poem, doesn’t it? John George Clay.
It wasn’t so much his features—it was his manner. He took
himself so seriously. And he was so dumb. It was that
combination—the earnestness and the stupidity—that got to me. A
sort of maternity syndrome I guess you’d call it. After all, I couldn’t
very well be his wife, could I?
 Oh, when I think…
Excuse me, I must be boring you. I’m sure you can’t be that
interested in a machine’s love life. Perhaps I could read something