"(Brian Aldiss)-Outside" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

Brian W.Aldiss

OUTSIDE

They never went out of the house. The man whose name was Harley used
to get up first. Sometimes he would take a stroll through the building in
his sleeping suit - the temperature remained always mild, day after day.
Then he would rouse Calvin, the handsome, broad man who looked as if he
could command a dozen talents and never actually used one. He made as much
company as Harley needed.
Dapple, the girl with killing grey eyes and black hair, was a light
sleeper. The sound of the two men talking would wake her. She would get up
and go to rouse May; together they would go down and prepare a meal. While
they were doing that, the other two members of the household, Jagger and
Pief, would be rousing.
That was how every "day" began: not with the inkling of anything like
dawn, but just when the six of them had slept themselves back into
wakefulness. They never exerted themselves during the day, but somehow
when they climbed back into their beds they slept soundly enough.
The only excitement of the day occured when they first opened the
store. The store was a small room between the kitchen and the blue room.
In the far wall was set a wide shelf, and upon this shelf their existence
depended. Here, all the supplies "arrived". They would lock the door of
the bare room last thing, and when they returned in the morning their
needs - food, linen, a new washing machine - would be awaiting them on the
shelf. That was just an accepted feature of their existence: they never
questioned it among themselves.
On this morning, Dapple and May were ready with the meal before the
four men came down. Dapple even had to go to the foot of the wide stairs
and call before Pief appeared; so that the opening of the store had to be
postponed till after they had eaten, for although the opening had in no
way become a ceremony, the women were nervous of going in alone. It was
one of those things...
"I hope to get some tobacco," Harley said as he unlocked the door.
"I'm nearly out of it."
They walked in and looked at the shelf. It was all but empty.
"No food," observed May, hands on her aproned waist. "We shall be on
short rations today."
It was not the first time this had happened. Once - how long ago now?
- they kept little track of time - no food had appeared for three days and
the shelf had remained empty. They had accepted the shortage placidly.
"We shall eat you before we starve, May," Pief said, and they laughed
briefly to acknowledge the joke, although Pief had cracked it last time
too. Pief was an unobtrusive little man: not the sort one would notice in
a crowd. His small jokes were his most precious possession.
Two packets only lay on the ledge. One was Harley's tobacco, one was
a pack of cards. Harley pocketed the one with a grunt and displayed the
other, slipping the pack from its wrapping and fanning it towards the
others.
"Anyone play?" he asked.