"Nancy Etchemendy - Want's Bridge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Etchemendy Nancy)

screams.
"Tell me what you want now!" she says.
"Bring them back! Oh, God. I'll do anything. Just bring them back."
"Such an intricate goddamned animal you are. Wrong! Guess again!"
"What do you mean?" I'm sobbing now.
"I can't bring them back. Nobody can, not even your lovely God. The dead are gone
forever. Guess again!"
How can I go on? The suffering is too great. Beyond enduring. What has she done
to me? What was that rock? I grab at the thought, shiny and slippery as the fish my
father and I caught together.
"The stone! Give me the stinking stone. I want it!"
There it is, that pleasant chuckle again. "Why?"
I don't know how to say it. I want the pain to stop, but that's the smallest part. What
are the words? I want to love. I want to be grateful. I want to see the stars and the
moon and clouds every night until I die.
"Yes," she says.
I feel the cool, smooth stone in my palm again. Night air pours into my lungs,
delicious, clean.
I sit up and look around. Shameless is gone, the fire transformed to orange coals.
Strangest of all, my hand is empty.
I climb to my feet and take off running west through the shallow creek. The
constellations turn above me, uncaring. I hear the mockingbird. I think of everything
I had--the house and its tidy garden; the church filled with people I know; my wife,
my child; all of it gone forever no matter how much I wish it back. A lance of
sorrow pierces me.
Too late I desire all that I possessed. I run from the bridge and the fire and the
bloody ravine behind me, praying I can learn to want what is left.
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