"Thomas A. Easton - Unto the Last Generation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

The music shifted. Trumpets replaced the organ, flutes the violin. The
accordion
vanished.
The rattle and bang of a very different rhythm sprang into the air.
"Shut up, Hammerhead!"
"Squirrel run. Wanta chase."
"Shaddap, you stupid mutt. Chase!"
"If I had a hammer, I'd hammer out freedom," someone sing-songed.
"Is this all there is? Somehow I expected more of an after _life_, you know?
I
paid a lot to be mindloaded, and...."
"If I had a knife, I'd slice that mutt's throat."
"If it had a throat."
"Asshole."
"It doesn't have one of those either."
"_Not_ quite."
The voices bouncing back and forth made the weedy zone defined by the
battered
gates and wall seem crowded. Yet nothing disturbed the brush and brambles. No
dog nosed after squirrels. No men or women paced the overgrown paths, glaring
and gesturing at each other as they bantered. The scene was deserted except
for
the disembodied voices and a crow spreading its wings atop an eroded, stained
angel.
"What the hell happened to the songbirds?" someone asked. "Haven't seen one
since I was a kid and in the flesh. Helluva long time ago, you know? Nothing
but
crows."
"And ravens," another voice added. "Sparrows, jays, herring gulls, starlings,
grackles. Trash birds, every one of 'em."
"Don't forget the pigeons."
"I wish I could."
"No hawks either. No eagles, no ducks, no geese."
"We got owls."
"Not bloody many."
"They eat pigeons, don't they?"
Someone giggled madly.
The sun was slipping down behind the knoll. Red filled the western sky and
silhouetted black the apple tree. Shadows stretched from the meager, ragged
woods beyond.
Beyond the warped and weathered gate, more shadows pointed straight at blocks
of
stone. Some stood erect and proud. A few leaned like drunks who craved a
lamppost. All showed signs of age in cracks and chips and softworn corners.
Some
were so oriented that the dying light could emphasize rows of eroded
lettering.
Some of the stones, the oldest, most weathered, most illegible, were simply
that: stones, thin slabs and obelisks and Victories of granite and limestone
and