"Ellison, Harlan - Objects Of Desire (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

HARLAN ELLISON

OBJECTS OF DESIRE IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

Those of you who expected the major novella we falsely advertised will have to
contain yourselves; major though it is, this new story's not a novella.
(Patience-there's one in the works.) "Objects" is, in fact, the author's
thirtieth work of fiction to appear in our pages. His first was "Paulie Charmed
the Sleeping Woman" back in August, 1962, and over the years, we've had the good
fortune to publish others such as "The Deathbird," "All the Lies That Are My
Life," and "Jeffty Is Five."

For you who keep track of such things, "Objects" is also the twenty-eighth story
that Mr. Ellison has written seated in a store window--a wondrous feat
unwittingly begotten by Georges Simenon (but that's another story) and one that
may well land Mr. Ellison in Mr. Guiness's book of records. In the Dangerous
Visions store in L.A. last May, Chris Carter supplied a sealed envelope in which
there were these words: "The 102-year-old pregnant corpse." Thereupon, Harlan
provided the rest:

WE FOUND THE POOR OLD guy lying in garbage and quite a lot of his own blood in
the alley next to the Midnight Mission. His shoes had been stolen -- no way of
knowing if he'd been wearing socks -- and whatever had been in the empty, dirty
paper bag he was clutching. But his fingernails were immaculate, and he had no
beard stubble. Maybe sixty, maybe older. No way of telling at a cold appraisal.

There were three young women down on their knees, weeping and flailing toward
the darkening sky. It was going to rain, a brick-mean rain. Bag ladies in an
alley like that, yeah, no big surprise...but these weren't gap-toothed old
scraggy harridans. I recognized two of them from commercials; I think the
precise term is supermodel. Their voices outshone the traffic hissing past the
alley mouth. They were obviously very broken up at the demise of this old bum.

We strung the yellow tape; and we started assembling whatever was going to pass
for witnesses; and then, without any further notice, the sky ruptured and in an
instant we were all drenched. The old man's blood sluiced away in seconds, and
the alley was that slick, pretty, shiny black again. So much for ambient clues.

We moved inside.

The smell of Lysol and sour mash was charming. I remember once, when I was a
little kid, I shinnied up an old maple tree and found a bird nest that had
recently been occupied by, I don't know, maybe robins, maybe crows, or
something, and it had a smell that was both nasty and disturbing. The inside of
the room they let us use for our interrogation smelled not much the same, but it
had the same two qualities: nasty, and unsettling.

"Lieutenant," one of the uniforms said, behind me; and I turned and answered,