"Goonan, Kathleen Ann - The String" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goonan Kathleen Ann)

of the huge kitchen which served as sort of a living room too, was entrenched in
her CAD, working on some specs she'd brought home. She was so good her firm had
paid to have the computer assisted design setup here at home as well as at the
office.
She looked up. "What's that?" she asked.
"Just the kite string."
"Well, we don't need any more clutter around here. Throw it away."
Instead, Dan sat down at the table and studied it. "Look," he said, "it's not
really a knot."
"You couldn't get much more knotted than that," Anita said.
"No, look: one end stayed attached to the stick. One end stayed attached to the
kite. It's not a knot. The ends never crossed. Theoretically, it's just a
perfectly straight string."
"Right," said Anita. "Sure. That's exactly what it looks like to me. Well, I've
got to get to bed. I guess it's my turn to take Jessica to physical therapy
tomorrow," she said, with that familiar resentful edge to her voice.
"I would, but I've got a meeting in the afternoon." He was a structural
engineer. He was aware that Anita, a brilliant, moody architect, sometimes found
his methodical, dogged approach to life dull. He often wished he were more
spontaneous, but he couldn't help himself. He had long since resigned himself to
being in the background and assisting her rapidly advancing career in any way he
could.
Dan sat at the table for half an hour, studying the string. Finally, he got two
knives out of the drawer and tied one end to each knife.
Then he started to pull little loops from the tight core.
Each loosening opened other possible avenues of unravelling, and he stared into
the heart of the string, more and more fascinated. Each time he created some
slack, he followed it down into the core, pulling and teasing, until it was lost
in the nest of tightness. Each time, he felt a little ping of joy when the core
of the string became more and more revealed.
It was three a.m. before he stopped, surprised at the time. How could he have
become so absorbed? He was about to untie the string from the knives and throw
it away when he stopped, smiled, and chucked the whole thing in a drawer. At
least it was something to do.
He went to bed feeling better than he had in a long time.
#

When he got home from work that night Jessica ran to meet him and said, "Guess
what? My lung capacity increased."
"Is that true?" Dan asked Anita, who was peeling carrots.
She didn't turn, but stopped what she was doing as she spoke. "That's what they
said," she replied, in the terribly even voice she used whenever they discussed
Jessica's medical problems. Then she went back to scraping carrots.
"That's wonderful, pumpkin," Dan said, and picked Jessica up, tossed her in the
air. They'd learned to celebrate about anything, but this was something
extraordinary.
"Yeah," she said, laughing. She went over and opened the silverware drawer so
she could set the table. "What's this?" she said, and pulled out the wad of
string dangling from one of the knives. "Is this the kite string?"
"Oh, Dan, I thought I told you to throw that away," said Anita.