"Brad Ferguson - The World Next Door" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferguson Brad)

funny numbers on it ... green, glowing ones, made up of sharp angles. The
thing hardly made any noise at all, except for some beeping whenever you
hit a key тАФ and you really didn't hit keys, but numbers on a pad that felt
like a thin sponge. Dick says when he woke up, he was real disappointed
that he didn't still have the cash register in front of him to play with.
That's just like Dick; I've seen him fool with a rat trap for hours, trying to
make it work better. He's always been one for a gadget.
October 13
Another weird dream. (I feel a little guilty about using up ribbon and
ink recording all these dreams, but I think it's important.) This time I
wrote down what I could of it before I forgot. Couldn't remember much,
anyway. I was back at the paper and there were a lot of people around,
people I'd known for years (but haven't ever met, waking). There was all
kinds of stuff around the office. Electric lights (no, fluorescent lights; they
were different) and a few desks had typewriters better than this one, but
most of the desks had little TVs on them тАФ except the TVs didn't show
pictures, but words ... hundreds of little green words on a dead black
screen. Maybe Dick LeClerc planted this in my head with his tale of the
cash register with the little green numbers on it. Crazy how your mind
works.
Jess is still okay, his wife says. His gums look good, and bleeding's one
of the first signs. He didn't get the shits, either, and he hasn't been
particularly tired.
October 20
Another singer showed up today, and getting two in just over a month
is really unusual, because we're so hidden away here. His name is Elvis
Presley, and he came into town this afternoon with a couple of what he
called "backup men" тАФ a guy with a guitar and another guy with a small
set of drums that didn't look too easy to carry through these mountains.
The drummer's a Negro. We haven't seen one of those around here in
maybe twenty years.
Some of the folks remember Elvis pretty well from the old days. He was
a big deal back then, always being on television and making records; he
even made some movies. Now he makes a living on the road, singing. He
looks good ... maybe a little thin, but we all are. Some of his hair's gone,
too; whether it's from radiation or because he's, what, fifty?, I don't know.
He'll do a set for us tomorrow. I think it'll help take our minds off the
anniversary of the beginning of the war.
We've got Elvis and his people boarded with the mayor. Elvis says he's
just happy to get in out of the weather. He also says he's got a lot of news
from faraway places, which he'll tell us about just as soon as he and his
group get themselves some food and rest.
October 21
Elvis did a nice set, all right. Led it with a song I remembered about
loving him tender. I liked it; we all did.
I got his news at the shindig after the performance. Elvis says there's
not much of the country left, as much as he's seen of it. The war caught
him in Nashville, where he was making one of his records. The Russians
didn't bomb Nashville, but the city was abandoned after the Fidel flu hit
in '69 and most people died. Elvis caught it but recovered, and he's been