"Greg Egan - Worthless (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

greatest lullabies. I gritted my teeth and stared out the window. With the
reading lights on all around me, I could see nothing but my own reflection; just
after midnight, though, the last of them went out, and I watched the grey
starlit desert pass by.



Spending money like a dying man, I took a taxi across the awakening city. I was
sick with fear -- but cushioned by a mixture of adrenaline and lack of sleep.
Part of me knew that the whole journey, the whole idea, had been insane from the
start, and wanted nothing more than to be back in my room, dissolving into a
miasma of loneliness and sensory deprivation. But part of me argued, fearlessly:
How do you know you won't be welcome? If a stranger travelled half-way across
the country to your door, wouldn't you take him in?
The building was shabby, dilapidated, demoralising, and utterly familiar -- and
in a way, that filled me with hope, as if the more we had in common, the more
likely he was to understand why I was here. I grew numb as I climbed the stairs,
my senses retreating into my skull even as my feet kept working. I'd felt the
same way as a child, when I'd climbed to the top of the swimming pool's diving
tower. (I'd turned around and climbed all the way down again.)
What would I do, when he opened the door? I'd planned to speak a line from one
of your songs, but I still hadn't made a choice -- and by now, half your words
had deserted me, and the rest seemed impossibly clumsy. If they were stilted
even in my head, how would they sound on my lips?
When I reached the seventh floor, I didn't hesitate or retreat: I walked
straight down the corridor -- and right past his door. What could I say to him?
I couldn't tell the truth, or anything like it -- not straight away. I needed a
pretext. I stood at the end of the corridor, frantically sifting clich├йs:
Looking for some other tenant. Given the wrong address. Just moved in
downstairs, and wondering if I could borrow ...
I couldn't do it. It made no difference how far I'd travelled, or how long I'd
dreamt of this moment. I couldn't knock on that door.
If I ran into him, though, in the corridor, on the stairs ... if we struck up a
conversation, I could tell him that I was new in town, searching for a place to
stay. I'd come to this building to rent a room, but there'd been some mistake,
it had already been taken ...
And he'd look me in the eye and say: I have plenty of room to spare. Let me show
you.
It was half past seven in the morning. Ben worked in a music shop; I knew that
much from the stolen data. He'd be on his way, soon enough. All I had to do was
wait.
So I stood by the stairwell, swaying, dizzy with fear. I knew this was my only
chance. If I failed, I'd vanish from the face of the Earth. If I failed, my
loneliness would open up its jaws and swallow me. If I failed, I'd die.
I still don't know, to this day, what it was you wanted from us. Some kind of
vicarious happiness? Some kind of second-hand love? Out of twenty thousand
people, then, why did you choose the loneliest, the saddest; why did you choose


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