"Steven Gould - Jumper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

The view was confusing, all the buildings lit, their actual outlines nebulous and blurring together. I
saw a distant green floodlit figure and things fell into place. Liberty Island was south of the Empire
State and I looked down Fifth Avenue toward Greenwich Village and downtown. The twin towers of
the World Trade Center should have clued me in.

I could remember Mom feeding quarters into the mounted telescope so I could see the Statue of
Liberty. We didn't go out to the island because Mom was queasy on boats.

I felt a wave of sorrow. Where had Mom gone?

I jumped, then, back to the library and replaced the guidebook on the shelf.

So, was it just any place I'd been?

My granddad, my mother's father, retired to a small house in Florida. My mom and I visited only
once, when I was eleven. We were going to go again the next summer, but Mom left in the spring. I
had a vague memory of a brightly painted house with white tile on the roof, and a canal in the back
with boats. I tried to picture the living room but all I could picture was Granddad in this indefinite,
generic sort of room. I tried to jump anyway, and it didn't work.

Hmph.

Memory was important, apparently. I had to have a clear picture of the place, gained from
actually being there.

I thought of another experiment to make.

I jumped.



On Forty-fifth Street there is store after store specializing in electronics. Stereo equipment, video
equipment, computers, electronic instruments. Everybody was closed when I appeared at the corner
of Fifth Avenue and Forty-fifth, including the vendor of Italian ice that I'd patronized the day before.

I could see into the stores, though, their interiors lit for security or display purposes. There were
steel bars lowered over most of the windows, secured with massive padlocks, but you could peer
between them.

I stopped before one store with wider bars and better lighting than most. I studied the floor, the
walls, the way the shelves were arranged, the merchandise closest to the window.

I had a very real sense of location. I was here on the sidewalk just six feet from the inside of the
store. I could picture it clearly in my mind. I looked up the street both ways, closed my eyes, and
jumped.

Two things happened. First, I appeared inside the store, inches from hundreds of bright, shiny
electronic toys. Second, within an instant of my appearance, a siren, very loud and strident, went off
both inside and outside the store, followed by the blinding flash of an electronic strobe which lit the
interior like a bolt of lightning.