"DiChario,_Nick_-_Sarajevo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dichario Nicholas A)
Sarajevo
by Nick DiChario
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Copyright (c)1999 Nick DiChario
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1999
Fictionwise Contemporary
Science Fiction
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In Sarajevo, at Rade Koncar Square, Ahmo watched a young boy fall to the bullet of a sniper. The shell blasted into his left ear and exploded out his jaw. The spurt of blood and chunk of meat and bone that was once his delicate, rounded chin burst into the air like a champagne cork. His body snapped in fierce retroflex before it collapsed. His neck twisted grotesquely underneath him. This was one of the first things Ahmo saw in Sarajevo. He watched it again and again, unable to believe his eyes.
The boy, for all his ghostly appearance, died his perpetual deaths in exquisite detail: His bruised left elbow hitched against his ribs. The torn, dirty, olive shirt he wore flapped airily in the breeze. A look of utter confusion crossed his face as the bullet introduced itself as smooth as an ice pick to tender skin and fragile bone. Even the dust settled around the boy's broken body as it must have done a century ago, captured by the extravagant miracle of his never-ending death. The boy died with his eyes open, questioning, as if there was something about the entire experience he'd just plain misunderstood.
"Excuse me, sir," a smartbot said in metallic English, rolling toward Ahmo on two trim wheels. "Should I call medical assistance for you?" It was an outdated model, short and broad-framed, with arms like brass sticks. It had a square head, no neck, and an old RetnaNet scanner strip for visuals, winking peridot and platinum. "English?" it asked in its scratchy voice. "Do I presume correctly?"
Ahmo felt the summer heat closing in on him. It was a bright afternoon, and there was nowhere to hide from the sun. He must have looked very pale. "I'm all right," he said.
"Very good. Will you please accept reading material from the Sarajevo Council on Spiritual Awareness?" The smartbot had a stack of pamphlets tucked under its stiff arm. It pinched one of the pamphlets with its adept robotic fingers and held it out to him. "By the grace of Allah, you are allowed to tread upon this Holy Soil. Allah offers the Miracle of Ghosts to all people who -- _ssschkitch_ -- travel to Sarajevo. The ghosts are prophets of Allah sent to remind us never to forsake peace. Peace with Allah, peace with one's soul, peace with each other and all living things is paramount. The people of the world were once guilty of turning their backs on Sarajevo, but Allah will not permit the world to-to-to _click, nnnnnnnn_ -- so easily forget. Read this pamphlet, please."
"I'll read it." Ahmo took the paper and folded it into his pocket.
"Sir, are you planning to visit Vase Miskin Street and the infamous Bread Queue Massacre?"
"Dobrinja," Ahmo answered.
The machine was right about Miskin Street. Hundreds of ghosts gathered outside what was, during the siege on Sarajevo, the city's only working bakery. On the morning of the massacre, the people came in hopes of buying a loaf of bread for their families with what little money they had. Ahmo knew from what his grandmother had told him that the people had no food, no water, no electricity, their telephones had all been cut off. They suffered the indignity of inadequate sanitation. They had not eaten eggs, meat, fruits or vegetables for many months. They survived on bread and rain water and what little rice they received from humanitarian aid.
The grenades exploded in the center of the crowd. Arms and legs were thrown into the air, landing on nearby balconies.
This was Sarajevo in the year 1992, and 2092, and all the years in-between. Welcome.
Ahmo stepped into the shadow of a decrepit building of worn and crumbling Jerusalem stone. He wiped the perspiration from his face with a bandanna already dampened by sweat. He dug in his pocket, unfolded the pamphlet the smartbot had given him, and read a quote from the _Holy Qur'an:_
_'...Men began to fear the strong and oppress the weak, _
_To boast in prosperity, and curse in adversity. _
_And to flee each other, pursuing phantoms, _
_For the truth and reality of Unity_
_Was gone from their minds.'_
Ahmo wanted nothing more than for the truth and reality of this horrible place to be gone from his mind. He had to remind himself of why he'd come. He'd come for his beloved grandmother. He'd made her a promise he would not break. He reached in his hip pack for the gold ring Grandmother Ivana had given him on the day she'd died, felt it at his fingertips, brought it to his lips. "Soon," he whispered. "Soon I will take you home."
Ahmo stepped out of the shadows and walked toward the suburb of Dobrinja, where Grandmother Ivana had lived when she was just a little girl.
* * * *
Ahmo rushed into his grandparents' small brownstone on the outskirts of Greenwich. He was late for Grandmother Ivana's death. He hadn't meant to be late, but the tube from East Jersey had stalled twice, and the demonstration against new government regulations on webnet virtuware had drawn thousands, clogging up eight blocks of prime downtown real estate.
"I can't wait around here all afternoon," said the Hemlock technologist, a petite young woman with a stiff posture aimed at Ahmo's grandfather. She wore a blazer the color of blush clay, a tight skirt, and a pair of black pumps that made her feet look large. "I've got two more deaths scheduled before six o'clock."
Grandfather's face turned crimson. "We pay Hemlock advance for job, you are going to _do_ job. Or else you refund money. _All_ of money!" He smacked his hands together.
Grandmother Ivana smiled up at Ahmo from the quilted sofa. In spite of all her sickness, she looked beautiful. She wore a long, silky, agate-blue wrap over an ivory-colored gown. She'd primped her hair, and Ahmo could see a trace of makeup on her blanched face. She was not even shaking much today. Ahmo took a moment to savor this picture of her.
The Hemlock lady noticed Ahmo standing just inside the parlor. "Is this the young man we've been waiting for?"
The woman's voice no longer sounded quite so tart. Not many women could remain angry around Ahmo. He had what his grandmother called "pouty little lips" and a baby boy's complexion. He'd inherited his mother's long, thin face and thick black hair, his father's strong chin and sky-blue eyes. Ahmo had developed a lean and muscular physique from his years of high school and collegiate basketball, and his job as assistant basketball coach at East Jersey University kept him fit and trim. The fact that he was an English Lit intern, teaching under a highly respected professor at the university, was something he kept to himself until he met a woman impressed by such things, a rare occurrence in his social circles that still revolved mainly around athletics.
"Ahmo," said his Grandmother, "I knew you would come." She spoke to Ahmo as if no one else were in the room. His grandmother had always talked to him this way, even when he was a child. She'd always made him feel special. Ahmo was almost thirty years old now and still hadn't found anyone else who could do that for him. There were plenty of women who wanted his body, and vice versa to be sure, but _special_ was hard to come by. This was one of the reasons he didn't want Grandmother Ivana to go through with the euthanasia. Selfish, but true.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said, not really meaning it. "It wasn't my fault. The tube stalled, and the demonstration downtown -- "
"It's all right, Ahmo," said his grandmother.
The young woman smoothed her woolen jacket. "I don't believe we've met," she said.
Grandmother said, "Miss March, this is my grandson, Ahmo. He'll be your second witness. Ahmo, this is Miss March. She's single."
Miss March smiled. "The pleasure is all mine."
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