"David Brin - A Stage of Memory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

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A Stage of Memory
By

David Brin
Fine, crystalline powder lay scattered along the cracked molding between the
mattress and the wall. The tiny white grains met crumpled tissues and hairballs under
the lip of a dingy fitted sheet. They sparkled incongruously along a thin trail across
the floor of Derek's shabby room, reflecting where, it seemed to Derek, there wasn't
any light.
The ripped windowshade cast a jagged knife of daylight on faded Variety
clippings taped to the opposite wall. The outline looked like the tapering gap
between a pair of legs... the legs of a runner in mid-stretch, making time against the
plaster.
Derek Blakeney contemplated the runner.
Headless, torsoless, it had started over near his closet, narrow and slow. As the
afternoon wore on, the shadow widened and the jogger seemed to catch its stride,
legs reaching like a steeplechaser's. Its progress across the wall became terrific... a
yard, at least, in the last twenty minutes.
At last Phiddipides crossed the finish line and expired in the shadow of the closet
door.
Evening. A time for decisions.
He had known all along what his choice would be. Derek's hands trembled as he
reached for the shoebox by the foot of the bed, his unbuttoned cuffs revealing an
uneven chain of needle tracks.
Bless the mercy law, he contemplated as he opened the box and took out a
sterilized package. Bless the legislators who legalized the paraphernalia, the
syringes and needles, so those on the low road won't have to share it with hepatitis
and tetanus.
He broke the sealed wrapper and pushed the bright needle through the rubber cap
of a tiny bottle of amber fluid.
Bless those who legalized the new drugs, so an addict needn't commit crimes to
support his slow road to hell. He doesn't have to drag others with him, anymore.
He wrapped rubber tubing around his arm and held it tight with his teeth as he
posed the needle's tip over the chosen spot. Derek's way of dealing with short-term
pain was to make a dramatic moment of it. When he pierced the protruding vein, his
face contorted as if to highlight the pain for the back-row balcony.
Even an out-of-work actor had his pride. Derek had never believed in cheating
those in the cheap seats, even if some selfish front-row critic thought one was
hamming it up a bit.
A small bead of milky liquid welled from the entry hole as he withdrew the syringe
and laid it aside. Derek sighed and sank back against his pillow. If he had calculated
it right, this time he would go back! This time he'd return to the good days, long