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

"Asphyxiation. Lack of oxygen. He was also frost
bitten."
"Oh come on! It was ninety degrees out there!"
"Only at ground level. But if he was high enough when
he began to fall--"

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Despite his hurts, George flung his arms wide and
flopped backward onto the bed. Still sniffing back the
blood, he stared with streaming eyes at the dark spot and
the crack. It was his evidence, the indisputable proof of
his awesome accomplishment.
Yet he could not remember the exact moment when it
happened. Presumably he fell (If 'fell' was the correct
term. Or would a whole new lexicon have to be invented to
accommodate alternate realities?) and landed badly. He was
knocked unconscious by the impact, which explained the
amnesia. He hoped he would never remember that part of it.
It could hardly have been a pleasant experience falling six
feet to a face-down landing on hard plaster.
He giggled. "I fell up!"
It would not do to have Ma see blood on the ceiling.
Not only would she not understand, she might even get around
to wondering if her wayward son had done something kinky
during her absence. George's giggle became hysterical
laughter; a paroxysm of mirth leaving him gasping. If
walking on the ceiling isn't kinky, what is?
He shrieked helplessly.
Later, after he took a flash photograph of the damaged
plaster, George found a small can of white paint and care-
fully dabbed out the red smear. There was not much he could
do about the crack, except perhaps to explain it as the
result of vibration caused by a passing truck (She probably
wouldn't believe that either). Then he went into the
bathroom and cleaned up his damaged face. The bleeding had
stopped, although his nose still looked as if it had been
the destination of a hostile fist.
Nevertheless it felt good to be a pioneer. Perhaps the
pioneer. George imagined the future his mindtwist had just
initiated; a strange, ever shifting but never dull world of
infinite realities in which the name of Kalewiski would be
up there along with the other giants; Newton, Einstein,
Hawking and the rest. Is this how Edison felt when the first
primitive light bulb glowed into life? Was Henry Ford as
proud when the first Model T rolled off the assembly line?
I doubt it, George told himself comfortably. Those men
were merely talented reflections of their times. After all,
for them the basic technologies already existed to turn
night into day, or transform the continent into a