"Robert Rankin - Waiting for Godalming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

of the rainbow. Well, I remembered the poem we'd been taught
at school, about how you remember the order of the colours in
the rainbow. It's a poem about fairies. It goes, Some came in
violet, some in indigo, In blue, green, yellow, orange, red, They
made a pretty row."
"I remember that," said the other voice.
"Yeah, well I remembered it and looked at the flowers. First the
violet ones, then the indigo ones and so on. And they spelled out
letters. Letters and numbers. They spelled out a chemical
formula. The chemical formula for Red Head."
"With the corner up," said the other voice.
"It's true. Well, the formula is true at least. The drug works. I
wish to God now that it didn't. But it does. When I'd written the
formula down, I thanked the flowers and then I smashed the
floodlights so that they could sleep and dream and then I walked
all the way home and went to bed."
"Incredible," said the other voice. "Insane."
"Oh yes," the tortured soul agreed. "It's quite insane. All of it. I
went into the Ministry the next day. Gained access to the
laboratory and mixed up a batch of the drug. It was remarkably
simple and straightforward. And then of course I had to test it.
See if it really worked. So I tested it upon myself."
"And it worked?"
"It worked all right. But not in the way that I'd been expecting. I
thought it would speed up my thinking. But the human brain is
not a calculating machine. It functions by entirely different
processes. Organically. Thinking is organic, that's what it's all
about. The drug enhanced my thinking processes. It opened my
eyes and allowed me to see clearly. To understand everything. To
see things as they really are. And people as they really are. The
ones who actually are people. And the ones who aren't. The
wrong'uns."
"Careful," said the other voice.
"Or what? You'll kill me? You're going to kill me anyway, aren't
you? You have to keep your secret. If humanity knew about you
and your kind and what you're up to and how to see you--"
"Careful."
"Be damned," said the tortured soul. "Be damned the lot of you. I
know you for what you are. And I know what you want."
"Only the formula."
"But you won't get it."
"You'll tell us what we want to know eventually."
"Not I," said the tortured soul. "I've only told you this much
because I wanted to spend the last few moments of my life free
from pain."
"What?"
"The poison I've taken will kick in at any moment. You'll never
find the drug. But someone will and that someone will learn the
truth and they'll put paid to you and your kind. That someone will
change the world for ever. That someone will make things right."