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

"The continuum won't permit it," murmured Courane. "The continuum is going to see to it
that I die a horrible death pretty damn soon. The hell with the continuum!"
Eldr├зs put a hand on Courane's arm and looked at him sympathetically. "This must be
hard on you," she said. "I have to go now. Think about what I said. I'll be back about 7:30."

Not long after Eldr├зs left, a nurse's aide came by to take Courane's temperature and
blood pressure. He let her wrap the sphygmomanometer around his free right arm. She
pushed the thermometer between his lips. At least none of this hurt. She noted his blood
pressure and his temperature on his chart and started to move off toward the next bed.
"Miss?" said Courane.

The nurse's aide gave him an impatient look. "Yes?"

"Would you tell the nurse that I'd like my shot now, please?" There was no room in the
hospital's operating budget for luxuries like call buttons at every bedside.

She nodded. "I'll tell her when I see her," she said. Courane had to take every opportunity
to get the message to the ward's head nurse. It usually took three or four requests before
she actually arrived with the medication.

The ward was not a pleasant place to recuperate. There were twelve beds, six on each
side of the aisle. Prisoners from Central Lockup filled four of them, handcuffed to their beds'
side rails. Even the patients who weren't chained down were suspicious. Before his
operation, Courane had had a small radio beside his bed. He liked to listen to the ball
games in the afternoon. The radio had been stolen soon after he'd been taken down to
surgery. On another occasion, when Courane had been wheeled downstairs for Xrays, he
came back to find his hairbrush and his shoes missing. Now the only personal possessions
he kept were some paperbacks, a spiral notebook, and a pencil. He had learned that books
were perfectly safe. No one here would have any use for a book.

Although it was only six o'clock, all the televisions had been turned on for the day. Eight
of the patients had their own portable sets beside their beds, brought from home or on loan
from relatives. It didn't seem to matter to the patients what was on. They watched anything,
rarely changing the channel. News programs, game shows, soap operas, kids'
shows-Courane heard them all; he couldn't escape the cacophony. The televisions wouldn't
be turned off until after midnight.
Suddenly Courane felt a sneeze coming on. He had a long incision in his chest and belly,
pulled closed with metal staples rather than stitches. It ran from the tip of his sternum all the
way to his pubes. A sneeze, a cough, even a hiccup caused him agony. He pressed on his
bandages with both hands and surrendered to the sneeze. The pain brought tears to his
eyes. He held himself and moaned, wishing that the nurse would hurry with the Demerol.
All Courane had to look forward to was another day of boredom, loneliness, and
desperation. He looked at his wristwatch: it was only 6:20. Time moved with the
sluggishness one would expect in prison, or Hell. He was thinking just that thought when a
priest bent over his bed.

"How are you today, my son?" said the priest.

All the visiting clergy were so goddamn kindly, thought Courane. "Fine," he said. The
priests didn't take it well when you complained to them.