"Baker,_Kage_-_Pueblo,_Colorado_Has_the_Answers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Kage)

It was cold on the front porch, and the little figure in flowered pajamas was shivering as she looked up at the stars. She was waiting for one to fall out of the sky, Marybeth remembered; and she almost stepped forward and advised herself to go inside, because the stars would never come within reach. She was not a cruel woman by nature, however, so she just stared fixedly at the child until she vanished, and then moved carefully past the place where she had been, down the steps into the street.
Kon-Tiki Liquors was still open as she crossed the street, but the red and yellow neon beer signs were being shut off one by one. The rest of the town was dark and silent. She experienced a peculiar disappointment as she came around the corner and found her parent's store as dark and silent as the rest. Well, better safe than sorry. She unlocked it, stepped inside and turned to lock the door behind her.
When she turned back, the counter was bathed in daylight, and her young father (God, he _had _looked like Jason Scott Lee) was having a conversation with a stranger in a red Hawaiian shirt.
_Man, oh, man, they must have been going a hundred miles an hour_, the stranger was moaning. Her father was nodding in agreement. _And they say he probably couldn't even see them in the dusk. Believe you me, that is one dangerous intersection even in broad daylight._ He stubbed out a cigarette under the counter. She drew a deep breath and edged past them. Her father barely glanced at her. _Honey, the new issues of Holiday Magazine came in._
"Okay. Thanks," she said, guessing that the ball of concentrated Time was doing more than warping the temporal flow around itself; Past and Present were becoming interactive. She leaned down to prize up the square of plywood. The sphere was glowing in there like a light bulb. She reached in with the kitchen tongs and pulled it out, and dropped it into the grocery bag. It flickered and went out, and when it did the daylight vanished and she was alone in the darkness of the store.
Out on Pomeroy Street again, she paused and wondered what to do next. After considering a number of possibilities, she walked over two blocks to the empty lot where the C-Air Motor Hotel had been before it burned down in 1966. A rusted standpipe protruded from a patch of cracked pink tiles there, nearly hidden by weeds. Using the tongs, she dropped the sphere into the pipe. She heard it rattling down into darkness. She dropped the tongs in after it and then wadded up the plastic bag and jammed that in too. Maybe the lead in the pipe would somehow shield against the temporal distortion. Or not; maybe it was an iron pipe. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it now. She walked home quickly and washed her hands as soon as she got in.
In the morning, she noticed that her watch was running backward. She replaced the battery when she got to the store, but it made no difference. Finally she turned it upside down and wore it that way.
The next time she saw Mr. Lynch, he looked crestfallen. He shuffled toward her down the aisle, clutching an envelope.
"You got any alarm clocks here?"
"Hi, Mr. Lynch. No, but Bob's Hardware has them. Did those people finish fumigating your trailer?" she inquired.
"What? Oh. Oh, yeah. It was too bad, though -- I lost the whole garden." He blinked. Was he on the point of tears?
"Well, you probably wouldn't have wanted to eat anything from that crop anyway, you said so yourself," she reminded him.
"Yeah, but all my topsoil's gone too. There's a big round hole now, must be eight feet deep. The boy from the Government said it was Geologic Subsidence. Said it didn't have anything to do with the other problem. Gave me some good advice, though." He nodded somberly and waved the envelope. "I can get free clean fill dirt. All I got to do is write to this Post Office Box in Pueblo, Colorado."
* * * *
As the summer wore on, there were occasional reports of odd occurrences -- somebody thought they saw a ghost in the Elks Lodge, and the instances of red tides causing phosphorescence in the surf increased. There were more surfers with old-style longboards in the water, and more little boys with crewcuts playing on the beach -- but Retro was In these days, wasn't it? And the occasional sightings of classic cars, gleaming as if lovingly restored, caused nothing but sentimental pleasure for the witnesses.
She was still a little uneasy about what she'd done with the sphere, but its effect seemed weak and dissipated. No phantom C-Air Motor Hotel rose from the weeds and at least Hatta's News, Cigars and Sundries was no longer the center of the phenomena.
And, really, how could it hurt business? Don't people come to little seaside towns to stop Time, to pretend they'll never grow old or haven't grown old, to relive a summer afternoon forgotten thirty years?
Marybeth went on working in the store, going home to fix dinner for her parents each night. She put a radio behind the counter, tuned to an oldies station, and hummed along as she waited on customers or arranged new stock on the shelves. The older customers complained bitterly about the God-damned Rock and Roll, and she'd apologize at once and turn the volume down until they left the store. Sometimes the news broadcasts mentioned the wrong President, but not often enough to draw attention. Secure, with a watch resolutely running backward, Marybeth Hatta was really rather happy. The past was pleasant at least. You have to live somewhere, after all.

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