"Bruce Holland Rogers - Something Like the Sound of Wind in the Trees" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

and they frequently went on strike. Even so, storing dry goods made more money for the owners than the
music ever had.
***


4. Caribbean
***


In the parking garage, April fell asleep in her car, dreaming of islands with white beaches. Her engine
ran. Carbon monoxide crept around the door cracks, slithered in through the ventilation. She kept
sleeping. The gas was colorless and bland. It had no sound of its own, but it borrowed the sound of the
ventilation fans, the sound of the sleeper breathing. In her dream, April felt the sea breeze in her hair. Her
arms and legs grew heavy with sunlight. The waves rushed ashore, one after another, turning to foam with
a hush, hush, hush.
***


5. She Wasn't There When It Happened
***


Sheila's lover, Ben, died of a heart attack in the street in front of their apartment. It was the old coat he
wore that killed him. When he slumped against the side of a parked car, no one would help him. They
thought he was a bum.
Sheila wasn't there when it happened, but she could imagine how it must have been: Ben curling
forward, his hand reaching out of the coat's frayed sleeve, strangers shifting their gazes so that they could
step around him without seeing him.
She tried to get on with things at work. She sent Ben's things to his family. In short, she held together.
Once, passing the spot where Ben had died, she heard a sound like the whisper of leaves in the wind.
But there weren't any leaves.
It's nothing, she told herself. She went in, made dinner, and switched on the television. But in the
morning, the sound was there again. She heard it on the street, in the subway, at work.
She tried to ignore it. She tried to pretend that the louder and louder hiss didn't exist, even though at
work she had to ask people to repeat things.
The next morning, in the subway car, the sound intensified until it was like strong wind in her ears.
Sheila looked up and saw flecks of light dancing across the faces of the passengers. It was as though
silver confetti were falling right in front of them, glittering. As she watched, the confetti fell faster and
thicker until the faces of those around her were like television screens tuned to an empty channel. She
stared.
She missed her stop. She rode to the end of the line, where people suddenly had their faces back, and
the sound fell off to a whisper. Because she didn't know what else to do, she went to work, but she spent
the day avoiding people.
On the walk from the subway to her apartment that night, she came to the place on the sidewalk
where Ben had died. The sound had stopped. There was no rustle or whisper or hiss. There were just
the street sounds, shoes scraping the sidewalk around her, cars passing.
Sheila was too tired to take another step. Her knees felt weak, and her eyes burned. A sound started
out of her. Her shoulders shook.
On either side, people shifted their gazes half a degree so that they could step around her without
seeing her.