"Ellen Gilchrist - Black Winter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilchrist Ellen)

We don't know what to do. We don't know if we should go or stay. Still,
the chickens are alive. They have grown very long tails, but Tannin says it's
just because they are nesting in the trees and are free. They look like
long-haired hippies. I think we should stop eating them. The meat is
tasteless after it is boiled. There are roots and berries and nuts in the
woods. But we are running out of other things to eat.
I will try to describe the darkness. It is like early November or March.
There aren't clouds. It is all one cloud. From horizon to horizon. No break
for ten days now. No wind. Tannin says that is good. He has started to use
his left brain. So have I. It's very cold in the left brain and makes me click
my teeth together when I try as hard as I can to remember every practical
and scientific thing I ever learned.
Three days of darkness have passed. We have kept track of every time
the watch passes twelve. Now, finally, at two in the afternoon the sky has
lightened up a bit to the south and west. There are pale shadows on the
forest floor. We will mark the length of the shadow of the nearest tree. We
will mark it each afternoon at two. Tannin is wearing a hooded garment
made of the microfiber car cover and with a huge cover on his head. I
don't think it makes any difference. I'm not sure, but I think radiation can
go through anything, even steel. I think lead absorbs it but we don't have
any lead except a little bit in some pencils and I'm not sure that's lead. I
think it is against the law to put lead in pencils because kids chew on
them in school.
Anyway, he puts on all this stuff and goes out to mark the shadow. He
won't let me do it. I'm thirty years older than he is. I should be the one to
take the chances.
Every day now the sunlight lasts longer. The cloud seems to be moving
to the east and north. It has not rained and Tannin says that is good as the
gamma particles will rain down on us and they are what carries the
radiation.
I don't know what to think. I spend hours looking at my skin waiting for
it to start falling off. It hasn't yet. We couldn't be this lucky, could we?
Could we have lucked into being alive? It was totally nuts to drive that car
for two hours and yet, here we are. With some food and a cave and a car
and my fur coat and the woods full of living chickens.
 We have a horse. Or, he has us. He came walking up wearing a torn
gray horse blanket. We took it off of him and tried to mend it but we don't
have a needle. It reminded me to find a needle if we ever go anywhere, or
else learn how to make one out of bone. Our clothes won't last forever.
Even the fur coat, which we take turns wearing at night or sometimes use
for a blanket. That fur coat cheers us up. In the first place it is warm. In
the second place I'll never have to pay for it. Mainly it makes us remember
we could have had a pound of Godiva chocolate and a box of Godiva coffee
if we had bought it. What I would really like is a baked potato and a steak.
A bottle of orange juice. And I wouldn't mind some whiskey. I would really
like some whiskey.
We make tea with different things we find. We are going to make some
dishes soon. We might build a kiln if we decide to stay here. It's hard
deciding what to do. I would take hikes to find out what's around here but
Tannin doesn't think we should go outside unless we have to. He is