"Robert F. Young - Structural Defect" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

"Of course, darling."
He shooed the sparrows away. They made angry gray streaks against the late after-noon sky,
twittered shrilly in and out of the catalpa tree. Melray opened the cage, took out the bluebird, and set it
on the little front porch of the bluebird house. It perched there motionlessly for a mo-ment; then, after
ruffling its plumage and softly twittering, it spread its wings and became a blue blur in the shimmering
summer air. Melray watched, entranced. Why, that was what it had been trying to do all day! After flying
twice around the catalpa tree it returned to the little parch and perched there charmingly.
"See," Melray said proudly. "It always comes back." He pointed to a small plastic tag riveted to the
base of the cage. "Guaranteed not to fly away," he read.


IT WAS an empty, lonely sound; a deep, broken sound. A sound of desperate, yearning sobbing in
the night. A terrible, hopeless sobbing....
Melray sat up in bed, the soporific sheets billowing around him like surf-crested waves. The
moonlight softly streaming through the translu-cent roof lay like silver snow in the room. He got up and
went over and stood helplessly by the silver snowbank of Bar-bara's bed.
He stood there for a long time, till the coolness of the ar-tificial temperature penetrated his pajamas
and touched his skin; till he was shivering, standing there, standing there helplessly, listening to his wife's
broken sobs.
He found his bathrobe in the dim wasteland of the room, and he slipped his icy feet into his sandals.
The thought of the bluebird flew through his mind, a warm, bright blur of blue. He knew suddenly that
that was what he needed, that that was what he had to have.
He would bring it back to the room and show it to Barbara, and the two of them would sit there
through the lonely hours discussing its blueness and its beauty; and somehow the night would go by
without bitterness and pain, without emptiness....
The moon was a mellow, ma-crocosmic fruit suspended against a scattered, twinkling foliage of stars.
The garden was a quiet place of argent pat-terns. He could see the dainty silhouette of the bluebird as he
walked down the pebbled path. It was ruffling its plumage. As he approached, it twittered softly. Then it
spread its wings and flew twice around the ca-talpa tree.
Didn't it ever sleep?
He reached up and took it down. It perched obediently on his forefinger, its tiny, pincer-like feet cold
against his skin. Metal cold. In sudden, shocked horror he felt its cold blue body, searching desperately
for the warmth that must be there, for the tiny quiver of heartbeat that had to be there.
The body was like ice. The small breast was silent The little radiant eyes looked at him blindly.
It ruffled its plumage. After a precise interval it made a soft twittering sound.
It was almost time for the flight around the catalpa tree....
Melray tore its head off. There was a brief flurry of blue sparks, a stench of shorted wires. The tiny
light-bulb eyes popped out like bright beebees and dropped to the ground.
He tore off the plastic wings and crumpled them in his hand. He snapped the little metal feet and he
ripped off the plastic legs. He plucked out the cellophane feathers one by one.
When his hands had stopped trembling he went back to the wasteland of the bedroom and lay in the
cold moonlight listening to Barbara's sobs. And seeing Mr. Smith every time he closed his eyes, and all
the mass-produced houses and the mass-produced gardens; and all the mass-produced people living out
their mass-produced lives in pursuit of mass-produced happiness....
After a while he got up and was horribly sick in the bathroom.

THE END