"Greg Egan - Scatter My Ashes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

cheered him on, rewarding each presumed death with ever larger headlines,
ever grislier speculations. How the serious papers strove so earnestly to
understand him, with scholarly dissertations on the formative years of the
great modern killers. How all the well-oiled mechanisms slipped into gear,
how everybody knew their role. Quotes from politicians: тАЬThe community is
outraged.тАЭ But the outrage was bottled, recycled, flat and insincere. What
would-be killer could hesitate, could resist for even a second, such a cosy
niche so lovingly prepared. And I understand now why he wanted me there that
night. He must have believed that if people could see, in colour, in
close-up, the kind of atrocities that we treat as an industry, an
entertainment, a thrilling diversion from the pettiness and banality of our
empty lives, then we would at last recoil, we would at last feel some genuine
shock, some genuine sadness, we would at last be cured, and he would be
free. He was wrong. So they've burnt his corpse and scattered his ashes. So
what? Did he really believe that could possibly help him, did he really hope
to end the interminable cycle of his incarnations? I dream of fine black
cinders borne by the wind, floating down to anoint ten thousand feverish
brows. The sight of the tortured child, you see, has exerted an awful
fascination upon people around the world. The first wave of imitators copied
the murder exactly as portrayed by my slides. The second wave embellished and
improvised. The current fashion is for live broadcasts, and the change of
medium has, of course, had some influence on the technical details of the
act. I often sit in my study these days, just staring at the walls. Now and
then I suffer moments of blind panic, when I am convinced for no reason that
Jack has returned, and is standing right behind me with his mouth stretched
open. But when I turn and look, I am always still alone. Alone with the
headlines, alone with the photographs, alone with my obsession. And that,
somehow, is far more frightening. тАЬNeighbourhood WatchтАЭ | тАЬScatter My
AshesтАЭ | тАЬMind VampiresтАЭ Horror Stories Back to home page | Site Map |
Framed Site Map Horror Stories / Scatter My Ashes / revised Wednesday, 16
May 2001 Copyright ┬й Greg Egan, 1988. All rights reserved. First published in
Interzone #23, Spring 1988.




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