"mayflies05" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

[things simultaneously,]
Remember one day, inside that other park? I tried
[one inside other.]
to scratch a buffalo's head but that triggers its
[Scratch triggers,]
mating instinct or something, I dunno why. You
[dunno why.]
hadn't gotten me away, I suspect I'd have an asshole
[Suspect]
looked like it was related to a sewer pipe, real
[related]
fantasizer dream. My education never prepared me
[fantasizer education.]
for that, or for that damn sideways shoulder-move.
[Sideways]
remember? Its eyes . . . red with the brown mark?
[eyes mark]
Never so glad to see the inside of a lock . . . wasn't
[inside]
a job, was a prison sentence . . . that day seems so
[sentence. Seems]
long ago . . . we put that bull on the HV channel,
[channel]
remember? I didn't know your wife knew those words,
[words]
not even separately. Kyoomed, they made her sound
[separately,]
like Mr. Mean. Sangria wouldn't have liked that
[like Sangria.]
speech she delivered. Wasn't easy getting away.
[Speech easy,]
If she hadn't tripped on her second swing, what topic
[if second topic]
would you have used for my eulogy? Mak, we were alive
[alive.]
then. Now, my left ear is deaf, gotta pull my ass
[Ear pull]
outta bed in the morning . . . it ends."
[ends.]

He pulled his ear and beamed. "That what you want me to teach?"
"Ah--" dumfounded, he gaped. "Well, yeah . . . sure. As part of a school that teaches people how to be fully human."
"Oh, human. You mean like this?" He reached out and took Cereus' hand in his. Slowly, the muscles of his face relaxed. His eyelids drooped.
Onorato's fatigue was as tangible to Cereus as the sofa beneath them. He felt the individual sore spots: the lower back, the knees that had knelt too long on metal floors, the left ear. He sensed the boredom of the day, the bleakness of the morrow. But 'in between . . . his heart beat faster; his lungs began to cycle more rapidly. Heat touched his groin, hardening him. He--pulled his hand away. "What the hell?" he whispered.
Onorato shrugged. "Lucy," he explained. "Thinking of her . . . don't know exactly how I do that, but I know I can teach it, because I taught Lucy. Want me to add that to the curriculum?"
"Whoof!" he said, leaning back. "Never expected . . . came to you because your family is the last that remembers how we used to be--figured your ma and your uncle might have an applicable idea or two . . . didn't expect to hit the jackpot. Were we all like that, back before?" He tugged loose hairs out of his beard, and laid them on his calloused left palm, where he fingered them as though he'd never seen their like before. "The Ice Bucket's in charge of education, and I have to admit it does a damn good job of teaching science, hard-fact sort of stuff, but . . . well, you take its code of ethics, now. It's okay, but---it's all push, no pull."
"Now you're confusing me." Cleaning his thumbprints, he crossed to the dispenser and bought another beer.
"It's a great code--fair and all--but people follow it only 'cause Cold Cubes'11 get 'em if they don't. Ought to be a better one. Ought to be able to find something in people that will make them want to follow a code, as opposed to being afraid not to . . . "
Onorato touched him, and broadcast affection. "This ought to do it, yes? 'Nother sip?"
"No, thanks, good stuff, though. And yeah, it might. But we need more: a school that'll show students what people have that machines don't. There's a whole range of characteristics that are uniquely human. Your school should be able to pinpoint a student's potentially strongest human trait, and to develop it to its fullest." He winked. "Didn't want to ask for much."