"John Kessel - Downtown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

Downtown
by John Kessel

Story Copyright (C) 2007, John Kessel.
Images Copyright (C) 2007, Rudy Rucker.
600 Words.




So at the end of the week I shut down my left brain, got charged, and told anyone who would listen that I
was going Downtown.

“And who is it that’s supposed to care?” the Group Average said.

“Certainly not you,” I said, pulling on my weekend skin. GA and I used to be featured, and they still held
it against me.

“What you gonna do down there?” the Duck asked. The Duck was puny and naïve.

“Tell me something I ain’t gonna do,” I shot back.

Well, that seemed to intrigue the Duck. “Can I come too?”

“It’s a free domain,” I said. “Long as you got your own charge.”We left the Group in the locker space
and walked out of there. The sun was dying and on the horizon the murder trees were stirred by the
offshore breeze. We walked up to the transit stop, plugged in, bought a couple of passages, and stood
on the platform in the sultry evening waiting for the slip. Far down the slipway glowed the lights of the
city.

“Will there be boys and girls there?” the Duck asked.

“You bet your feathers,” I replied. “Ducks, too.”

When the slip drew up we settled in and before we knew it we were stepping out into the colorful Calle
Rosinante. Boys! Girls! Snakes! Metatron the Archangel, Available for 23 Amps! Ducks!

Hot jazz filled my right brain, singing Go! Go!, along with the Four Noble Truths:



Life sucks.

It sucks because you’re stuck on things.

This can be remedied.

Fake left, fake right, go up the Middle.
Just like Downtown to kill your buzz while pushing it. Stuck on things? I wasn’t going to be stuck on
anything tonight longer than it took me to drink it or smoke it or poke it. Remedy me no remedies, Chaz.