"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Past the Size of Dreaming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

Tears rushed from his eyes. That didnтАЩt make sense. He was seventeen and he was crying, but what
he really felt was a ball of anger in his stomach so hot and fierce he felt like throwing up. He turned to
stare at the man.
тАЬYour own folly did that,тАЭ the man said.
Julio jumped up. тАЬNo,тАЭ he said, cradling the violin neck against his stomach, swamped with brief guilt
while he wondered if this were his fault. Did he ask this man to order him around? Did he ask to be
snatched from the practice room without even a moment to stow the violin in its case? No. His eyes still
leaked hot tears. He had never felt this angry before in his life.
тАЬSit,тАЭ said the man for the third time.
тАЬNo.тАЭ
The man gestured and murmured some words, and Julio found his legs walking him to the chair. He
sat.
He glanced at the other boy. The boy stared at him with the intent look of a bird of prey staring at a
mouse. Julio wiped away tears, ashamed. Perhaps he couldnтАЩt help doing what the man said, but he
didnтАЩt have to share his anguish with people who didnтАЩt care. The heat in his chest built higher and hotter.
He managed to stop the tears.
тАЬTell me about your friends!тАЭ The strangerтАЩs voice held an edge of anger now.
HeтАЩs losing it. Julio kept his mouth closed. His head was so full of anger and pain he didnтАЩt have
room for obedience.
тАЬVery well,тАЭ said the man. тАЬThink about this for a while.тАЭ
Three gestures and some freezing, hard words. Marks appeared on the hardwood floor around
JulioтАЩs chair: two concentric circles in ice-blue light, with unknown symbols in blood red light scribbled in
the band between them. Julio felt his bones freeze. He clutched the violin neck, but his hand was dead; he
couldnтАЩt even feel his fingers against the hard wood. The man gestured and spoke more words, these
ones slice-sharp and even icier.
And Julio lost himself.
Utter dark, darker than blindness. Utter cold, subzero and marrow deep. For a brief time, silence.
Then the noise began. Voices, yammering, wailing, screaming, each one a pure cold stream of its
particular emotion, soul-deep sorrow and regret, heart-hammering terror, roiling red rage. All of them
printed themselves on JulioтАЩs mind and heart.
He was such a good listener.
Then came the little biting things, gnawing behind eyes Julio was no longer sure he had. Tiny teeth
tore into his brain, each toothmark a separate pain.
He struggled, tried to bat the biting things, tried to wall his ears off with his hands, but he didnтАЩt seem
to have a body here; he had no defenses. All of him was ear, was skin, was brain, was pain. Flute shrieks
of terror, violin screeches of shrill anger, tympani thumps of pounding rage, cello glissades of unending
sadness, other instruments he had never heard before expressing feelings that made him want to scream
or slash his wrists, all disharmony and discord. Pianissimo horn notes of utter despair, brush whispers of
terrible shame. Slashing vocal shrieks of agony and pain and torture. His mind struggled to make music of
it. It refused to sort from chaos into pattern. Every new note, every new voice, sawed or sliced at him,
each at a different tempo, each in a different way.
It didnтАЩt soften or stop. It just got stronger, less endurable.
Finally he stopped trying to fight it, let go and let it all in.
Then it hurt even more.
He could feel pieces of himself slice off, fall away.
He needed help.
тАЬNathan!тАЭ he cried. No sound came out: he had no mouth.
Sound existed here somehow. It cut and chopped at him.
He had to make his own song.
He thought it: тАЬNathan.тАЭ It came out as a squeak. He thought it again, drawing his concentration