"Michael Kandel - Strange Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kandel Michael)

 Barrancabermeja
My brain, due to some abstruse metabolic anomaly that in turn is due to some gene not being where it
should be on the chromosome, produces two or three chemicals that are powerful hallucinogens. These
chemicals have impressively long names, and I've seen their structures put up on the blackboard. The
doctors at the hospital were anxious to show me that the things I was seeing and hearing were in reality
purely molecular. It was amusing, sometimes, to see a pink bat perched on Dr. Gross's shoulder as he
explained. The bat and the doctor, opponents on either side of the existence question, were equally
smug.
I hate the pink bats, because they actually bite and can cause welts (or blisters). Power of
suggestion or no power of suggestion, I dodge when attacked. Who likes pain? It presents problems,
however, when I'm out in public or, worse, being examined by a psychologist. Sudden, unexplained
movements make people apprehensive.
A pink bat appeared on the plane while they were serving food. With the tray in front of me and a
fat woman like a wall of pillows between me and the aisle, I had no room to maneuver. The illusion
approached slowly; it knew it had me. The damned thing sank its fangs into my wrist. All I could do, in
revenge, was pretend it wasn't there. I lifted my coffee cup and sipped.
It's true that even without the medicine very little fazes me. Human beings, I've read, are miracles of
adaptability, and I suppose I'm a case in point. My Aunt Penny—who visited me shortly after I was
released from Rosedale, and whom I haven't seen since—complained that I was "unemotional." Dr.
Gross, on the other hand, said that he envied me my equanimity. I looked the word up: a good word.
The biggest problem about my condition is that every now and then something really peculiar
happens and then I have no way of telling whether or not it's just my chemicals—those cortical
alkaloids— acting up. If a lion escaped from a zoo and I saw it on a street corner, I'd probably ignore it
or try to walk straight through it.
The probability of seeing a lion on a street corner is low, it's negligible. But in a foreign country, in a
less familiar, less citified area of the Earth, a lion on a street corner might not be so farfetched. I worried
about this, getting off the plane at Bogota. How would I know an Öht when I saw one?
I managed well, much better than I thought I would, with the business of finding and checking into a
hotel. I didn't have to use my phrase book or pocket dictionary once. Everyone spoke English. They
treated me like an old friend. It wasn't until I was in bed, with the blanket tucked comfortably under my
chin, that I realized that no one had spoken English to me. I had spoken Spanish the whole time, with the
ease of a native.
The next morning I returned to the airport and took a plane to Bucaramanga. During the flight the air
was crystal clear. Underneath us, one town after another passed by, all picturesque, nestled between the
mountains. They looked like kingdoms in a fairyland. But in Bucaramanga the sky was overcast and the
air muggy. My hotel room had roaches. Obscenities were written in the toilet stall at the end of the hall.
The next day—Wednesday, the day before the invasion, according to the visitors from outer space
—I had a few hours to kill, after breakfast, until the bus left for Barrancabermeja, so I went for a walk in
the city. I saw two eighteenth-century churches, pastel yellow and white, and the Bucaramanga
University, a collection of massive gray buildings and green parks. There were traffic lights, stores, and
even air pollution.
I bought a hat and sunglasses. Then a pack of scrawny children attached themselves to me. They
wanted money. Not that I objected to giving them something—but I was afraid they might jump me at the
sight of my wallet, like piranha at the smell of blood. They were scruffy, muddy, and looked amoral
around the eyes and mouth.
To shake them off, I went into a post office. I mailed Lucille a postcard depicting a coffee plantation,
coffee being one of the department of Santander's claims to fame. "Wish you were here," I wrote in
English. The gamins, I saw, were waiting for me outside. I asked a clerk if there was a bakery nearby.
Indeed yes, he replied, just around the corner. So I led my band of predators to the bakery. The baker
began to curse at them, shaking his fist, but I raised my hand and presented him with a large, crisp note.