"S. P. Somtow - Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile.." - читать интересную книгу автора (Somtow S. P)

loop, and would we be kind enough to repeat the same day over
and over again for a while, with two hours off from 6 to 8 every
morning, while their kids came over and studied everything in
detail. We were very lucky, they added; it was an excellent deal. No,
there wasn’t anything we could do about it
I wondered to myself, how long is “over and over again for a
while”?
 They answered it for me. “Oh, nothing much. About seven
million of your years.” I felt rather short-changed, though I
realized that it was nothing in comparison with immortality.
And, standing there stock-still and not knowing what to think,
I saw the most amazing sight. We all saw the aliens as gossamer
veils of light that drifted and danced across the field of vision,
almost imperceptible, miniature auroras that sparkled and
vanished… I saw Sir Francis’s face through a gauze of shimmering
blue lights. I wanted to touch them so badly; I reached out and my
hand passed right through one without feeling a thing. Then they
were gone.
We turned off the house lights—we had until midnight—and
went on with the play. The buzzing subsided almost completely,
but was very obviously there all the time, so everybody gabbled
their lines and tried to cut in quickly between speeches to cover up
the noise. The applause was perfunctory, and Sir Francis seemed
considerably distressed that he had been so easily upstaged.
I walked home at a few minutes to midnight. I saw peculiar
poles with colored metallic knobs on them, all along Broadway
every couple of blocks, like giant parking meters. The streets were
virtually empty, and there were a couple of overturned Yellow cabs
and an old Chevy sticking out of a store window. It had been too
much for some, I supposed. But I was so confused about what had
happened, I tried to think about nothing but Gail and about the
bad thing that had happened that morning.
I climbed up the dirty staircase to my efficiency above an
Indian grocery store and jumped into bed with all my clothes on,
thinking about the bad thing between me and Gail, and at midnight
I suddenly noticed I was in pyjamas and she was lying there beside
me, and there was a sudden jerk of dislocation and I knew that it
wasn’t today anymore, it was yesterday, it was all true. I squeezed my
eyes tightly and wished I was dead.
 2

I woke up around 11 o’clock. Gail stirred uneasily. We made
love, like machines. I kept trying to pull myself away, knowing
what was coming. Whatever the aliens had done, it had turned me
into a needle in a groove, following the line of least resistance.
We got up and had breakfast. She wore her ominous
dishevelled look, strands of black hair fishnetting her startlingly
blue eyes.
“John?”
The dinette table seemed as wide as all space. She seemed