"Thomas M. Disch - The Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

happening it did not bestir itself to phone for help. Indeed, its
impulse was rather to feed the flames than to damp them, from a
sense that they were its own. Anyone who has built a great leaf-fire
and seen the flames leap high has felt a similar vanity. It is our own
shadowтАЩs rapture we share at such a moment, its sense of itself as
something immense and unbounded, the shadow in mad-emperor
mode.
As the flames spread through the house, flitting among those
things most flammable, they also kindled scraps of psychic tinder
in AngieтАЩs own sere soul. For it was she, not the shadow, who
began to hum тАЬSome Enchanted Evening,тАЭ which long ago, at a
bar in Orlando, Florida, a pianist had sung to her at RoyтАЩs
particular request on their fourth anniversary. Somehow this May
morning, as she sat in her burning house, the dear old tune seemed
the key to her whole life. The melody seemed endless, with no
point along the way she could stop at, so that finally it was the
shadow and not Angie who had to take the initiative and stagger up
from the rocker and out the front door, almost invisible by then
behind the billowing black smoke.
While the neighbors gathered to watch the arrival of the
firemen and their losing battle, Angie sat on the other side of
Wythe Lane, sprawled in an Adirondack chair, a spectator at her
own disaster, yet as little distressed as if it had been a crisis on the
evening news, a war in West Africa or riots at the Mexican border.
The shadow, meanwhile, gorging on the fireтАЩs triumph was in
a state of comatose surfeit, like a tick swollen with blood. When the
emergency medical team showed up, it was determined, after Angie
didnтАЩt answer their questions and they had filled out the
appropriate forms, that she was in a state of shock. To spare
everyone the discomfort of her inappropriate and weird lack of
affect, Angie was sedated and taken off in the EMT ambulance.

When the sedative had worn off, Angie continued to pose a
problem for the staff at Mercy Hospital, for she would not remain
in her bed in the recovery ward (a temporary assignment) but
would go wandering through the halls and lobby, confused and
querulous. She couldnтАЩt understand why her clothes had been taken
from her and she had nothing to wear but a paper examination
gown that left her backside bare.
Anger was not an emotion in AngieтАЩs usual repertory. She
could do nothing but weep and ask to talk with her son in Tacoma.
But Angie could not remember his number, which was unlisted.
The shadow, still gorged, did nothing to help, nor could it have. It
let her dither about in the public areas of the hospital and make a
fuss like an ill-tempered pet locked in a parked car.
 By the time Tom was contacted and had got to the hospital,
Angie had calmed down, and the shadow had again assumed
control. It lay in the hospital bed and glowered dully at Tom and
the various strangers who had questions about the fire. Once or
twice it had asked for a cigarette, but this produced no response