"Rudy Rucker - Realware" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

"Oh God, I'm sorry, you're Kurt Gottner's son, aren't you? You must be so weighted that you don't know what to do."

"Yes, exactly. Thank you. My name is Phil." He held out his hand.

"I'm Yoke."

"That's a nice easy name. What was your connection with my dad?"

"Oh, I'm visiting Terri and Tre Dietz, so I came along with them to pay my respects. Tre's been so excited about your
father's work, he talks about him all the time. Your father must have been a great man. How horrible that the wowo
killed him."

"It's a nightmare. Everyone's scared to sleep in his house anymore. I've been down here in a motel since Thursday—
today's Saturday, right?"

"Yes. Time's strange for you now, isn't it? My mother died at Christmas —which is another reason I'm here—and for
the few days afterward it was like there was this glowing light everywhere and time wasn't moving at all. I even started
smoking for a week, something about the cigarettes made it easier to chop up the time. And where I come from,
smoking is practically impossible."

"Cigarettes, what a concept," said Phil. "If I let myself, I'd be drunk and stoned through all this for sure. I'm glad I don't
have to do that. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. She died on Christmas Day?"

"Christmas Eve. She was alone. I feel terrible." Yoke's eyes moistened.

"Poor Yoke," said Phil, and went on talking lest the two of them break down.

"You're right about the kind of glow everywhere. Luminous. Realer than real. My father's ashes are in that little box on
the rug on the lawn and the rest of him is who knows where, he's really dead and someday I'm going to die too. This
—" Phil gestured at the old building around them, at the misty trees and the people outside. "This is what there is.
We're like ants under lichen. Actual organisms crawling around in this shallow layer of fuzz on the Earth."

"Lichen?" smiled Yoke, wiping off her eyes. "I just saw natural lichen for the first time this week —forest lichen instead
of the stuff inside moldies. Terri took me on a tour of the Big Basin redwoods. The ranger said, 'Alice Alga took a
lichen to Freddie Fungi, and ever since, their marriage has been on the rocks.' " When Yoke hit the "lichen" pun, she
giggled and raised her eyebrows.

"Or maybe we're like beetles under bark," said Phil, trying to stay poetic and serious. "Or rabbits in a briar patch. I keep
having this funny vision of how glued to the Earth's surface we are. And how shallow the atmosphere is. Gaia's skin."

"I totally know," said Yoke in a heavy Val accent. Phil couldn't tell if she was mocking him or if that was a way she
really talked.

Outside, the last speaker had finished and people were standing up and starting to mill around.

"Everyone's going to hit the canapes now," said Yoke. "Big-time. Before the crowd gets here I need to go to the
bathroom."

"So that's why you asked if I'm a teacher," said Phil. "It's up those stairs, Yoke."