"Rudy Rucker - Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

Another step takes us all the way across Route 101, the step after that across east San Jose. The farther
from Jerome's picture we get, the smaller things are.

"Perspective!" exclaims Jerome. "The world has shrunk to perspective!"

We hop over the foothills. And now it gets really crazy. With one last push of our legs, we leap past the
moon. It's a pale yellow golf ball near our knees. We're launched into space, man. The stars rush past, all
of them, denser and denser—zow—and then we're past everything, beyond the vanishing point, out at
infinity.

Clear white light, firm as Jell-O, and you can stand wherever you like. Up where it's the brightest, I see a
throne and a bearded man in it, just like in Jerome's paintings. It's God, with Jesus beside Him, and
between them is the Dove, which I never did get. Right below the Trinity is my own Virgin of Guadalupe,
with wiggly yellow lines all around her. And up above them all are my secret guardians, the Powerpuff
Girls from my favorite Saturday morning cartoon. Jerome sees them too. We clasp hands. I know deep
inside myself that now forever we two are married. I'm crying my head off.

But somebody jostles me, it's Harna right next to us, pushing and grunting, trying to wrestle our whole
universe into a brown sack. She's the shape of a green Bosch-goblin with a slit mouth.

I turn off the waterworks and whack Harna up the side of the head with my purse. Jerome crouches
down and butts her in the stomach. Passing the vanishing point has made us about as strong as our
enemy, the demonic universe-collector. While she's reeling back, I quick get hold of her sack and shake
its edges free of our stars.
Harna comes at me hot and heavy, with smells and electric shocks and thumps on my butt. Jerome goes
toe-to-toe with her, shoving her around, but she's starting to hammer on his head pretty good. Just then I
notice a brush and tubes of white and blue paint in my purse. I hand them to Jerome and while I use
some Extreme Wrestling moves from TV on Harna, Jerome quick paints a translucent blue sphere
around her with a cross on top—a spirit trap.

I shove the last free piece of Harna fully inside the ball and, presto, she's neutralized. With a hissing,
farting sound she dwindles from our view, disappearing in a direction different from any that we can see. I
wave one time to the Trinity, the Virgin and the Powerpuff Girls, and, how awesome, they wave back.
And then we're outta there.

The walk home is a little tricky—that first step in particular, where you go from infinity back into normal
space, is a tough one. But we make it.

As soon as we're in my apartment, I help Jerome slap some house-paint over his big mural. And when
we go outside to check on things, everything is back to being its own right size. We've saved our
universe.

To celebrate, we get some Olde Antwerpen forty-ouncers at the 7-11 and hop into my bed, cuddling
together at one end leaning against the wall. I'm kind of hoping Jerome will want to get it on, but right
now he seems a little tired. Not too tired to check out my boobs though.

Just when it might start to get interesting, here comes Haraa's last gasp. I can't see her anymore, but I can
hear her voice, and so can Jerome. "Have it your way," intones the prissy universe-collector. "Keep your
petty world. But the restoration must be in full. Before I leave for good, Hierony-mus must go home."