"Clark, Brian - The Man Who Walked On The Ceiling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clark Brian)

(in George's humble opinion) one the most underrated talents
in the science fiction firmament, George happily absorbed
what was pompously proclaimed in the title as THE ILLUSION
OF REALITY.
After explaining that reality is literally a 'creature
of the mind', the writer went on to claim that the potential
exists for as many alternate realities as there are minds to
conceive them. Only because human beings are brainwashed
from birth to believe in a single indivisible reality, does
the universe appear to be structured that way--when, in
fact, we exist within an infinitely flexible multiverse,
which needs only the touch of an untrammeled imagination to
become modified into whatever a person chooses.
It was heady stuff, and perhaps if George was not so
desperate to believe (he had already flirted with
Dianetics), he would have spotted the exploitative nature of
the piece, not to mention its obvious contradictions. But,
George reasoned, if he could almost turn a stippled ceiling
into the fourth planet of Epsilon Eridani, then perhaps--
Start small, he told himself. Start small.
Practice!
Determination!
He had taken three days of his vacation so he could
have that much uninterrupted time until his mother returned
home. It was an opportunity which would probably not be
repeated until she dropped dead, or was dragged kicking and
screaming into a nursing home. Considering her current state
of rude good health, neither alternative seemed likely for
at least another decade or two. His mother hated to leave
her house for more than a few hours, and she had only done
so this time because her younger sister was getting married
again. So after a hurried breakfast, George launched himself
into his project.
The process was, on the face of it, extremely simple.
On and off, all that day, through the night and into
the next day, he forced his reluctant brain to work on
nothing else. Part of him, the unambitious easy-going part,
stood aside and watched with astonishment at the exhausting
regimen this new, almost messianic George Kalewiski imposed
on himself. Certainly, his purpose was not as grandiose as
mentally shifting himself to the alien world of an alternate
reality. Instead, George decided he would use his mindtwist
to start small.
His only intent was to walk on the ceiling.

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"He must have fallen out of a plane."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But there was nothing up
there. Not even clouds. Just a few birds and the wild blue