"Charles de Lint - Big City Littles" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

BIG CITY LITTLES
BY CHARLES DE LINT
FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY
ARE ALL VIRTUES, AND
SOMETIMES IT CAN BE DIFFICULT
тАФ YET ESSENTIAL тАФ
TO TELL THEM APART.

The Fates seem to take a perverse pleasure out of complicating our lives. I'm not sure why. We do such a good job
it all on our own that their divine interference only seems to be overkill.
It's not that we deliberately set out to screw things up. We'd all like to be healthy and happy, not to mention
independently wealthyтАФor at least able to make our living doing something we care about, something we can take pri
in. But even when we know better, we invariably make a mess of everything, both in our private and our public lives.
Take my sister. She knows that boyfriends are only an option, not an answer, but that's never stopped her from
bouncing from one sorry relationship to another, barely stopping to catch her breath between one bad boy and the nex
But I should talk. It's all well and fine to be comfortable in your own skin, to make a life for yourself if there's no one
the scene to share it with you. But too often I still feel like the original spinster, doomed to end her days forever alone
some garret.
I guess for all the strides we've made with the women's movement, there are some things we can still accept only o
an intellectual level. We never really believe them in our hearts.

THE LITTLE MAN SITTING ON SHERI PIPER'S pillow when she opened her eyes was a good candidate fo
the last thing she would have expected to wake up to this morning. He wasn't really much bigger than the length from
tip of her middle finger to the heel of her palm, a small hamster-sized man, dressed in raggedy clothes with the look o
bird about him. His eyes were wide set, his nose had a definite hook to it, his body was plump, but his limbs were thin
twigs. His hair was an unruly tangle of short, brown curls and he wore a pair of rectangular, wire-framed eyeglasses n
much different than those Sheri wore for anything but close work.
She tried to guess his age. Older than herself, certainly. In his mid-forties, she decided. Unless tiny people aged in
something equivalent to dog years. If this were happening to one of the characters in the children's books she wrote an
illustrated, now would be the time for astonishment and wonder, perhaps even a mild touch of alarm, since after all, ti
though he was, he was still a strange man and she had woken up to find him in her bedroom. Instead, she felt oddly ca
"I don't suppose I could be dreaming," she said.
The little man started the way a pedestrian might when an unexpected bus suddenly roars by the corner where he's
standing. Jumping up, he lost his balance and would have gone sliding down the long slope of her pillow if she hadn't
slipped a hand out from under the bedclothes and caught him.
 He squeaked when she picked him up, but she meant him no harm and only deposited him carefully on her night
table. Backing away until he was up against the lamp, his tiny gaze darted from side to side as though searching for
escape, which seemed odd considering how, only moments ago, he'd been creeping around on her pillow mere inches
from her face.
Laying her head back down, she studied him. He weighed no more than a mouse, but he was definitely real. He ha
substance the way dreams didn't. Unless she hadn't woken up yet and was still dreaming, which was a more likely
explanation.
"Don't talk so loud!" he cried as she opened her mouth to speak again.
His voice was high pitched and sounded like the whine of a bug in her ear.
"What are you?" she whispered.
He appeared to be recovering from his earlier nervousness. Brushing something from the sleeve of his jacket, he s
"I'm not a what. I'm a who."
"Who then?"
He stood up straighter. "My name is Jenky Wood, at your service, and I come to you as an emissary."
"From where? Lilliput?"