"Aldiss, Brian - Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

When she made up her mind to follow the boy, she found him in the
courtyard floating the rose in his paddling pool. He stood in the
pool engrossed, still wearing his sandals.

"David, darling, do you have to be so awful? Come in at once and
change your shoes and socks."

He went with her without protest into the house, his dark head
bobbing at the level of her waist. At the age of three, he showed
no fear of the ultrasonic dryer in the kitchen. But before his
mother could reach for a pair of slippers, he wriggled away and
was gone into the silence of the house.

He would probably be looking for Teddy.

Monica Swinton, twenty-nine, of graceful shape and lambent eye,
went and sat in her living room, arranging her limbs with taste.
She began by sitting and thinking; soon she was just sitting.
Time waited on her shoulder with the maniac slowth it reserves
for children, the insane, and wives whose husbands are away
improving the world. Almost by reflex, she reached out and
changed the wavelength of her windows. The garden faded; in its
place, the city center rose by her left hand, full of crowding
people, blowboats, and buildings (but she kept the sound down).
She remained alone. An overcrowded world is the ideal place in
which to be lonely.

*

The directors of Synthank were eating an enormous luncheon to
celebrate the launching of their new product. Some of them wore
the plastic face-masks popular at the time. All were elegantly
slender, despite the rich food and drink they were putting away.
Their wives were elegantly slender, despite the food and drink
they too were putting away. An earlier and less sophisticated
generation would have regarded them as beautiful people, apart
from their eyes.

Henry Swinton, Managing Director of Synthank, was about to make a
speech.

"I'm sorry your wife couldn't be with us to hear you," his
neighbor said.

"Monica prefers to stay at home thinking beautiful thoughts,"
said Swinton, maintaining a smile.

"One would expect such a beautiful woman to have beautiful
thoughts," said the neighbor.