"Robert Rankin - The Witches Of Chiswick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

 “Get out while you’re winning,” said Will’s dad. “Your mother and I felt
that it was the right thing to do, Will. So you could, you know, be amongst
your own people, as it were.”
“But you’re my own people, you’re my family.”
“You know what I mean,” said Will’s dad, chasing baked beanettes with
his fork. “I don’t have to say the word, do I?”
“Slim?” said Will. “Is that the word?”
Will’s mum traced a sacred S (for Sainsbury’s, not for slim) across the
vastness of her breasts. Newly proffered coffee spilled over Will’s dad’s
waistcoat.
“Now look what you’ve done.” Will’s dad struggled to his feet, plucking
at his steaming front.
“I’m slim,” said Will. “It’s not a disease. It’s not something to be
ashamed of.”
Sadly, however, this was not the case. In these days after the days
after tomorrow, being slim no longer held sway when it came to looking
good. These were now the days of the weighty. That mankind should grow,
not only in mental but in physical stature too, was probably an inevitability
(although not one that had ever been accurately predicted). But then, the
science of prediction had never been noted for its accuracy – not even when
the course of future events seemed obvious.
For instance: in the year of Elvis Presley’s death, nineteen
seventy-seven, there were, at most, several dozen Elvis impersonators in
the world. By the year two thousand and two, however, there were more
than thirty-five thousand. Given this expanding growth rate, it was
accurately predicted that by the year two thousand and twelve, one in four
people on the planet would be an Elvis impersonator.
This, of course, proved not to be the case.
The figure was actually a mere one in six.
But those days were now long in the past, and in these days, after the
days after tomorrow, things were not as might have been expected. They
appeared to have escaped all attempts at prediction. That the future lay in
fatness had certainly slipped right past Nostradamus.
By the days after tomorrow, the average weight of the Western human
was fifteen stone. By the days after the days after tomorrow, the scales
were being tipped and strained at the twenty-stone mark, and rising.
But Will was a slim ’un. And although his parents were proud of him, in
the way that parents always are, the social stigma of slimness was always
there.
And Will was very slim.
The features were fine enough – noble, almost: a good strong nose and
bright blue eyes and a mop of blondy hair. But his neck was of a longness,
and his fingers too. And there was also an awkwardness about him. And
there was an other-worldliness about him too, although this was nothing to
do with his slimness. It was more to do with the fact that Will dwelt for
most of his waking hours in a world of his own making: a world of romance
and adventure, a world where he could really take some risks.
For the world that Will inhabited was not very kind to Will. Folk pointed
at him in the streets, laughed as they pointed, called him “skeleton boy”
and “you slim bastard!” They gave him a very hard time. Will ate as much