"Campbell, Ramsey - The Parasite 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell Ramsey)

'Bad dreams - perhaps.' He frowned, closing his brows over his eyes. `I'm not quite sure how I can help you,' he said.

The darkness was very close. `Can't you help me sleep?' she pleaded.

`Oh yes, quite easily. Librium will do that. But I'm not fond of tranquillizers - they're a negative drug, I think. They treat the symptom, not the cause.'

`But what is the cause?'

'I'm not sure. I hope that doesn't disturb you. Frankly, I think that anyone in my profession who claims always to be sure is a charlatan. Suppose this: suppose your experiences are neither dreams nor hallucinations?'

'I don't follow.'

`Suppose they are actual perceptions of some kind?'

Why couldn't he play the role she expected of him? `Surely you don't believe that,' she said accusingly.

`Psychiatry is in its infancy. Not only can't it cure everything, but there are times when it is too eager to do so. We have very little idea what the mind is really capable of.' He was lecturing. `Put it this way,' he said, more conversationally. `If someone told you that they could project themselves astrally I think you would be skeptical. But since, after all you've told me, you insist that you can't, I'm inclined to wonder whether you can.'

She could only stare at him. `Understand, we're hypothesizing,' he said, not reassuringly enough. `But I'm struck by the number of points your descriptions have in common with other such accounts. I take it you haven't read any of the literature? No, I thought not. In the same way, descriptions of LSD experiences often tally in suggestive ways. Much of the mind is uncharted, you realize. We know too little about these visionary states.'

She'd begun to feel like an unwilling experimental subject. `But what am I supposed to do?'

'If the experience is real, you mean? I would suggest that you try to go through with it. Undoubtedly you will be nervous to begin with, but suppose you learn to control what is happening? That may be easier than you think. My thought is this, you see - that if you genuinely have these powers, it will be more harmful to repress them than to develop them.'

`But what if I don't want them?' she said desperately.

`Perhaps you haven't got them at all. I'm sorry; I should have more regard for your feelings. Perhaps once you have the tranquillizers you'll never experience anything out of the ordinary again. Tell me just one thing: the voice that you say released you from your nightmare - could it have said "She's saying no"?'

'It's possible. Why?'

'It may have been the voice of your own mind, saying that you weren't sufficiently prepared. I take it that you can't say what kind of a voice it was.' He gazed at her as though that ought to be completely reassuring. `Well,' he said after a while, `I'll get you your capsules. They should help you over the worst of it.'

He took his time over finding them in his desk. As he dropped the box into her hand she thought he grimaced faintly, disappointed. `Please let me know at once if anything further happens. Or if you need reassurance,' he added, with a hint of self-mockery that seemed infuriatingly mischievous. `Of course, if you decide that there's any truth to my hypothesis, do remember that I'll help you in every way I can.'

Once home, she opened the box of Librium. The green and brown capsules made her think of insect eggs. Bill glanced at them and smiled encouragement, perhaps too widely. `Was he a help?' he asked.

She couldn't begin to tell him what had happened, not until she gained some control over the turmoil of her feelings. `Yes, I think so,' was all she could say.

A few minutes after swallowing two capsules she would have been happy to sound more definite. Relief welled up from her solar plexus; it felt like ointment that was bathing her, calm, cool, all-embracing. She was no longer afraid to sleep. In a few moments she was dozing. Yet she felt a twinge of guilt: wasn't this relief too easy, a coward's solution? How soon might she resemble Gladys, apologizing nervously for taking drugs?

Twelve

`Oh God,' Bill cried in half-amused disgust. For a moment she thought it was meant for the book she was reading. `Listen to this, will you. They've printed "Geiss" for "Geist".'

`Which means . . . ?'

'Well, it certainly doesn't mean what we wrote. Instead of Vincent Price being possessed by the ghost of his ancestor, he's possessed by the goat of his ancestor.'

It was July. Tomorrow they would fly to Munich. Bill sat on a relocated chair, bemoaning the German translation of Shared Nightmares. The furniture had moved around the room for the summer, to avoid the floods of sunlight. The deep pile of the carpet was clogged with shadow. Rose sat on the sofa, on the embroidered silvery vines. It stood close to the open hearth now. One day perhaps they'd replace the open fire, which she loved, and the gas fires in the other rooms, with central heating - if they stayed here long enough, and if they could bear the domestic upheaval. She was reading a book called Out of the Body.