"Charles L Grant - Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

"You okay?"
Bless you, I thought sourly, and nodded. .
"Shouldn't have done that."
I didn't know whether he meant me or the tiger.
"Gordon Anderson," he said again, as if tasting it for some hint of its flavor, or for some trace of its poison.
He stared at the sky, sighed once more, and then I aealized I was expected to stand up. That I refused to do. The last . time I was naked and standing, my female costar had nearly
strangled laughing. It had almost cost me the job, but she had felt sorry for me and blamed it on her lunch.
Besides, those patches weren't new. The antiseptic was weak and I was hurting, badly.
Meanwhile, the squeaking continued.
"Sorry about the animal, but you're supposed to be experienced at this sort of thing, Anderson. That's what they told me at casting. You're supposed to be experienced. A stage actor, right? You're supposed to know about these things, Anderson, if I know anything about that sort of... living, Am I getting through to you, Anderson? You're supposed to know!"
I could think of little more to do at the moment but nod again. My fingers kept returning to the patches, touching, pressing, wondering how I was supposed to handle the flood sequence without ripping open the bandages and bleeding to death. I would see the Diagmed people afterward, of course, but I had a feeling they could do nothing for me. The healing would be speeded up, but there probably would be scars. And why not?
"You're supposed to be brave, yet frightened, Anderson," the voice piped on, as though my screams hadn't been real enough. "Fearless, yet hinting at grave doubts as to your next plan of action. There is a flood coming, Anderson, a flood! Do you have any idea what that means?"
"I'll drown," I said, just loud enough for him to misunderstand.
"I don't think you're right for this job, Anderson, to tell you the truth," the director said after a carefully measured dozen beats of pacing, and waiting for word that the tiger was all right. "You . . . you are required, you see, to set an example, the perfect example, for the audience-in case you've forgotten. You must radiate courage, determination, and just a drop of apprehension. You have trials yet to come, remember, trials that you cannot possibly imagine. And these trials that you cannot possibly imagine are filling you with challenge and trepidation. And, I might add, those children out there who are watching will want to be with you! They have to understand not only the vicissitudes of -life, but also their symbolic representations in your journey. If they don't, they're only going to get nightmares. Do you follow me, Anderson? I say, do you follow me?"
Whither thou directeth, midget, I thought, then quickly nodded and raised my hands in a virtuoso combination

display of supplication (for the continuance of the job), ,! surrender (to the director's artistic authority), and defiance (for the sole benefit of the tapeman who was still running his :J idiotic machine).
The director grinned.
I clamped my hands firmly on my knees and straightened
to my full sitting height. '!
"That's fine, Anderson. I knew we would be able to
communicate once you got to know me a little better. Now, u
we have about thirty minutes or so before the flood. Why i
don't you take a short break and prepare yourself? We can .
run through the close-ups later on, when the flood goes
down. Is that all right with you?" ;1
"Whatever you say, boss," I said. And after he had tramped off somewhere to commune with whatever he communed with to make these tapes, I slid off the rock to the carefully trimmed grass, crossed my legs, and folded my hands over my stomach. After a doubtful glance at the sky, I closed my eyes, wrinkled my brow in practiced concentration, and fell ^' asleep.
When I dreamed, it was of a small glass unicorn surrounded by low-burning candles.

The flood came precisely on cue-the director wouldn't
have had it otherwise-but the finely woven strands of
safety line that should have prevented me from being swept
away into the next sound stage snapped under the pressure.
Luckily, I was out of position and managed to grab on to the
director's oak, where they found me tightly gripping the
trunk when the waters subsided. When I opened my eyes
and they realized I was far more frightened than injured,
they let me be. Except for the director, who slapped me on
the back, patted me slyly on the left cheek (both of them),
and strode bellowing off toward the setting of the next .
scene-the earthquake. _
Slowly, testing one limb at a time, I unwrapped myself from the plastic tree and snatched at the robe one of the .` crewmen held out for me. After a moment's hard glare at the ' water and the sky, I stumbled off to the dressing room we all used in common. There was no one inside the long, narrow building when I arrived, and for that one small favor I was eternally grateful. I dried myself as best I could with my hands refusing to close, my arms disobeying the commands
from my muddled brain, then I sat in front of my mirror and watched a single drop of water fall from my chin.
I stared at my reflection. Stared at the array of small and large jars, long and short tubes, hairpieces and skin dyes, falseflesh and false eyes. Stared at them all until they blurred into a parody of a rainbow; stared, grunted, and swung my fist into their midst, smashing until all were scattered on the floor.
Stared at the mirror, at the reflection, at the high creased forehead and brown eyes and slightly hooked nose and slightly soft chin. My fist came up to my shoulder. Trembled. I wanted to split open my knuckles on that face in the mirror, and drive cracks through the world that existed behind my back.
But at the moment-and only at the moment-it was all the world I had, and my hand dropped slowly to the table, where it rested on a ragged bit of cloth I used out of habit to wipe off my face.
In the beginning the idea had been a tempting one. Begun by the British and expanded by the Americans, the tapes were the foundation of a dream-induced system through which young people would hopefully be matured without actually suffering through the birth pangs of adolescence. Hospital wards with soft colors, nurses with kind faces, and for two hours and twenty minutes every other day the young were wired and hooked and taped to a machine, which I and others like me, those actors with no place to go, inhabited. We -wrestled with tigers, endured floods, endured women and men and disasters personal. It was, as the narration stressed again and again and again-who knows how often? -all very symbolic, and all very real.
Watch! the voice ordered.
Take care, the voice cautioned.
Watch, and take care, and listen, and apply . . . apply... apply . . . listen . . . apply...