"Barry N. Malzberg - Still - Life" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

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AT BREAKFAST, A HINT OF VIGOR
They gather for breakfast: it is the first time they have done
so in several weeks because, during the last stages of the

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 Still Life by Barry N. Malzberg



preparation, he has had to be on the grounds before 5 A.M.,
has, in fact, slept in the dormitory several times but now that
the training has been completed and the focus of the
preparations has shifted to countdown on the great ship, he is
able to breakfast with his family again. He has two children,
both boys, ages nine and six; his wife is thirty-seven but does
not, she is told by everyone, look it and in certain sweaters,
certain postures, she can effect the breast line of a very young
woman. The boys are restless and beyond discipline this
morning, tossing flakes from the cereal boxes at one another,
calling in high, taunting voices; it seems that they are still
enmeshed in some dispute of a few days past involving,
perhaps, theft. His wife attempts to calm them but he says no,
no, it is perfectly all right; he does not want to interfere with
routine, only try to get back into it and the younger boy says,

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 Still Life by Barry N. Malzberg



“but how can you do that, Dad, if you're going to the moon in a
week?” He would answer that if he could, but then the older boy
says quickly, “don't be stupid, he's not going to the moon, he's
just going to fly around it, they won't be ready to go to the
moon for six months yet; how can you be so stupid?” and slaps
the younger violently three or four times across the head. The
younger begins to, cry and inverts the cereal box on the table;
the older starts an anticipatory cry of his own, perhaps feeling
that his mother's punishment will be less if he already seems to
be in agony, and his wife, her face streaked and discontent,
lunges from the stove to seize both of them in either hand. It
seems for a moment that she is going to do a kind of qualified
violence, just as she has competently done so many times when
the boys have gotten out of hand, but in a quick shift of light,
her face changes, becomes remote, saddens somehow, and she

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 Still Life by Barry N. Malzberg