"George Alec Effinger - Posterity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

Posterity by George Alec Effinger

COURANE FINALLY MANAGED TO FALL ASLEEP SHORTLY before dawn. Less than
two hours later, though, he was awakened by the blood lady, who came into the ward and
turned on all the overhead lights. Courane raised his head a little and watched as the blood
lady came toward his bed. He knew he would never get any more sleep that night. The awful
day had begun.

"Morning," said the blood lady. She set a metal basket of test tubes on Courane's
blanket.
"Good morning," said Courane. "You're new."

The young woman nodded. "Today's my first day," she said. She tied a rubber hose
around Courane's arm and tapped the veins on the inside of his elbow. Then she fitted a test
tube to a syringe and discarded the needle's plastic cap. She looked into Courane's eyes
and smiled. "I've never done this before," she said. "You're my first victim."
"Oh boy," said Courane. He felt a quick, ugly chill in his belly. The blood lady tapped a
vein again and seemed satisfied. She jabbed the needle home, and Courane winced. No
blood flowed into the test tube. "Oops," she said, "sorry."

"It's all right," muttered Courane. He was in the hospital; he expected to suffer pain. If
he'd had insurance or money in the bank, he could have been in a private hospital instead of
a charity ward where almost the entire staff was trying out its dubious skills on captive
patients.

The blood lady wiggled the point of the needle in Courane's arm until she hit the blood
vessel. "Here we go," she said, as the test tube began to fill up. Courane watched as she
loosened the rubber hose. When the test tube was full, the blood lady pulled it free and
jammed another in place. She hadn't yet learned to change tubes without stabbing the
needle deeper. "Just one more," she said. She removed the second test tube and pressed
on a third, again sending a jolt of pain through Courane's arm. He lay in the bed, his eyes
now tightly closed.
"All done," she said at last. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" She'd moved on to the next bed
before Courane had a chance to reply.
Courane let his head rest on the plastic pillow. He stared up at the water-stained
soundproofing tiles on the ceiling. He wished he could change position, but he could barely
move. To his left, a tube snaked down from an IV bag on a pole into a tangle of white
adhesive bandage around his wrist, which was taped tightly to a board. He held his left arm
motionless, because he was afraid of dislodging the IV needle in the back of his hand.
Another plastic tube connected his right nostril to a squat, noisy machine beside the bed.
The tube wiggled and irritated his nose, and the soreness was almost as bad as the blazing
pain from the surgical wound in his belly.

Courane prayed for oblivion, but sleep was very difficult to achieve on the charity ward.
To Courane, the trouble with sleep was that he couldn't really appreciate the freedom from
pain while he had it. He realized his loss only when he woke up again. Of course, in theory
he was entitled to a shot of Demerol every four hours. In actual practice, however, that was
as hard to come by as sleep.
"Hello," said a soft voice. "How are you feeling this morning?" Courane looked up at the
beautiful woman and blinked. She had long, lank white hair, and she was wearing a bizarre,