"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Nanotech 02- Mississippi Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

the fountain behind him, bent where light causes it to climb the
steps, and rippled where it rests against some ornate curves. His
shadow moves in deliberate rhythm, and his hollering song rises
above the soft splash of the fountain.
The music draws me down the darkened street. As I approach
him the building next to him lightens for about ten seconds,
revealing jewel-glowing lines of light, green and yellow and red,
which race upward then vanish while light floods from all the
windows so I get a good look at him though itтАЩs over fast and IтАЩm
still a long block away.
Guitar chords stutter from beneath his long, plucking fingers in a
strange, halting rhythm. ItтАЩs good and loud, and echoes down the
empty street. The melodic quaver in his voice and the utterly new
sound of this music sends a chill down my spine. He sings it harsh
and straight and mournful, something about trouble in mind, which
I certainly have.
I am dizzy. Sweat inches down my face. I might live the rest of
my life, and it might be short, in this awful, kaleidoscopic
half-world. Yet this music redeems me somehow, reaches through
the sensory flotsam and organizes it, removes the sickness.
But he stops. I try to hurry forward but canтАЩt go fast enough. I
shout but find to my horror that my plea is only in my mind; I canтАЩt
make it emerge from my mouth. I try to run but my body wonтАЩt
obey and I fall, so slowly, it seems, onto the hard pavement, the
breath knocked out of me. ThereтАЩs no point in trying to get up. The
cool, rough pavement is at least dependable, cradles my aching body
as an overwhelming despair washes through me. In this darkness,
though IтАЩm sure itтАЩs not full night yet but only another spell of the
blindness IтАЩve been experiencing, I might almost be dead again.
Save for that distant music, beginning again, a bright, tenuous
thread to which I cling.


1
Trouble in Mind



One
Resurrection Blues
The first sunset after CincinnatiтАЩs awakening was fiery, flaring
incandescent red and yellow sheets of light through transparent
intense blue, coloring the coming night as the inhabitants stood on
what was left of RoeblingтАЩs suspension bridge cheering and weeping.
The roar of the Upper Falls on the New Ohio River was fierce.
Flock after flock of dark starlings rose from the Kentucky forests
expanding like the dissipation of darkness itself into the brilliant
air, and rumor took its first steps toward legend as people began to
talk about how it all happened, and to wonder what year it was тАФfor