"Jack Finney - The Other Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

Who can say whether the events of the night before affected those which now followed? I certainly
couldn't; I was too tired, dragging home from the office along Third Avenue, heading uptown from
Thirty-fourth Street about five-thirty the next evening. I was tired, depressed, irritated and in no hurry at
all to get home. It was hot and muggy outside, and I was certain Marion would give me cold cuts for
supper-and all evening long, for that matter. My tie was pulled down, my collar open, hat shoved back,
coat slung over one shoulder, and trudging along the sidewalk there I got to wishing things were different.
I didn't care how, exactly-just different. For example, how would things be right now, it occurred to me,
if I'd majored in creative botany at college instead of physical ed? Or what would I be doing at this very
moment if I'd the job with Enterprises, Incorporated, instead of Serv-Eez? Or if I'd gone to Siam with
Tom Biehler that time? Or if I hadn't broken off with what's-her-name, that big, black-haired girl who
could sing "Japanese Sandman" through her nose?

At Thirty-sixth Street I stopped at the corner newsstand, planking my dime down on the counter before
the man who ran it; we knew each other long since, though I don't think we've ever actually spoken.
Glancing at me, he scooped up my dime, grabbed a paper from one of the stacks and folded it as he
handed it to me; and I nodded my thanks, tucking it under my arm, and walked on. And that's when it
happened; I glanced up at a brick building kitty-corner across the street, and there on a blank side wall
three or four stories up was a painted advertisement-a narrow-waisted bottle filled with a reddish-brown
beverage and lying half buried in a bed of blue-white ice. Painted just over the bottle in a familiar script
were the words, "Drink Coco-Coola."

Do you see? It didn't say "Coca-Cola"; not quite. And staring up at that painted sign, I knew it was no
sign painters' mistake. They don't make mistakes like that; not on great big outdoor signs that take a
couple of men several days to paint. I knew it couldn't possibly be a rival soft drink either; the spelling
and entire appearance of this ad were too close to those of Coca-Cola. No, I knew that sign was meant
to read "Coco-Coola," and turning to walk on finally-well, it may strike you as insane what I felt certain I
knew from just the sight of that painted sign high above a New York street.

But within two steps that feeling was confirmed. I glanced out at the street beside me; it was rush hour
and the cars streamed past, clean cars and dirty ones, old and new. But every one of them was painted a
single color only, mostly black, and there wasn't a tail fin or strip of chromium in sight. These were
modern, fast, good-looking cars, you understand, but utterly different in design from any I'd ever before
seen. The traffic lights on Third Avenue clicked to red, the cars slowed and stopped, and now as I
walked along past them I was able to read some of their names. There were a Ford, a Buick, two
Wintons, a Stutz, a Cadillac, a Dort, a Kissel, an Oldsmobile and at least four or five small
Fierce-Arrows. Then, glancing down Thirty-seventh Street as I passed it, I saw a billboard advertising
Picayune Cigarettes; "America's Largest-Selling Brand." And now a Third Avenue bus dragged past me,
crammed with people as usual this time of day, but it was shaped a little differently and it was painted
blue and white.

I spun suddenly around on the walk, looking frantically for the Empire State Building. But it was there, all
right, just where it was supposed to be; and I actually sighed with relief. It was shorter, though-by a good
ten stories at least. When had all this happened? I wondered dazedly and opened my paper, but there
was nothing unusual in it-till I noticed the name at the top of the page. New York Sun, it said, and I stood
on the sidewalk gaping at it; because the Sun hasn't been published in New York for years.

Do you understand now? I did, finally, but of course I like to read-when I get the chance, that is-and I'm
extremely well grounded in science from all the science fiction I've read. So I was certain, presently, that
I knew what had happened; maybe you've figured it out too.