"Paul Di Filippo - The Short Ashy Afterlife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

"I wish I had returned from my affairs in China a day or two earlier," said the Shade, "before Klink and
his boys completely obliterated this lawn. Look at this mess! Those flatfoots might've been playing a
duffer's round of golf, the lawn's so hacked up. Ally clues to the identity of your husband's killer are long
gone."
For the first time I noted the terrible condition of the lawn. What the Shade had observed was true. I
regretted I would not be able to roll out and reseed in my current state.
Attired in widow's weeds, a veil floating across her devilishly beautiful features, Sparky sniffled with
touching, albeit insincere sympathy. "Poor Dottie! He was ever so prideful of his whole garden.
Sometimes in fact I think he loved it more than me...."
Not so! I wanted to shout. Well, perhaps.... honesty instantly forced me to amend.
The Shade regarded Sparky with a natural compassion, tempered, I thought, only by those common
suspicions that attach to the spouse of any murdered husband. "There, there, Mrs. Dottle. I know it's
small comfort, but we'll eventually catch the fiend who did this."
"That's what I pray for each night before I climb into my lonely empty bed, Mister Shade, where I writhe
and squirm feverishly until dawn." Sparky gripped the Shade's right bicep in an overfamiliar manner and
fluttered her long lashes at him.
The Shade appeared a trifle flustered. "Ahem, yes. Now, let me just have a look at this tree."
Crouching at my base, the Shade produced a magnifying lens and examined my bark. With one gloved
finger he took up a few flakes of my rain-washed and sun-dried blood. He cogitated a moment, then
stood.
"I would've thought a man startled by an axe-bearing assailant might have made a dash for his life, or at
least clawed at the tree where he kneeled in an attempt to scramble upright. Yet he died without a scuffle
right where you earlier saw him working."
Unwisely perhaps, Sparky vented her residual hatred. "Dottie was a meek little shrimp!" Hastily, she
recovered. "That is, my husband had a mild disposition. He must've fainted straight away when the awful
thug came on him."
"Yes, that's one explanation. Well, Mrs. Dottle, there's not a lot I can do here. I'll be going now."
"Oh, please, Mister Shade, just walk me back to the house. I can't stand to be alone near this tree.
There's something creepy about it now, since my husband died."
As the Shade and Sparky retreated, she cast a dire look back at me, almost as if she could see her
husband sheltering inside his oaken suit.
Once the pair were out of sight, I found myself sinking down into blissful vegetal somnolence again. The
happy sensations of being an oak completely wiped away any mortal cares left over from my prior life.
Why should I trouble myself about human justice? My old life would never be restored through the
courts. Let the fleshly ones squabble among themselves. Their little lives had no impact on mine.
My arrogant invulnerability lasted for roughly a year. Through summer, fall and winter I gloried
undisturbed in the magnificence of my being, experiencing each turning season with new joy.
But then in the spring came my comeuppance. I had been much too cavalier in dismissing Sparky's ability
to do me further harm.
One day near the anniversary of my murder, a second set of killers arrived to slay me once again.
I witnessed the truck from Resneis Arborists pass through the gates of my small estate and down the
drive. Improbably and most uncivilly, it actually continued up onto my prize lawn, the turf now looking
admittedly less than perfect due to lack of attention. Rough-handed workers tumbled out, and a foreman
began to shout orders.
"Okay, you jokers, get a move on! We've got to take down every tree on this property plenty pronto, if
we want that bonus. And the big oak goes first!"
Horrified, I watched two men pull a huge saw from their truck and start toward me.
I could feel the big sharp teeth placed harshly against my barky skin.
The first rasping cut produced a dull agony. The second, deeper stroke sent fiery alarm signals down my
every fiber.