"Gregg Keizer - I am the Burning Bush" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keizer Gregg)

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I AM THE BURNING BUSH
By Gregg Keizer
I am the Dead Man.
I could feel the texture of the rope as it dug into the flesh around my neck. It was not the first time that I had died for lifers, but it was not the best time, either. It was to be a simple death, only a hanging. Nothing spectacular.
They think I do not feel the pain, but I do. The pain is always the same, like a white-hot needle through my lips. It was the same now, even though it had been over a year since I'd last died in front of them. For a year I had experienced the private deaths, dying only for myself, loathing the memories of their lifer touches. But something had driven me back to them again. I remembered now that it wasn't the pain. Perhaps it was the way their eyes went wide when I walked into a room. Or maybe it was only their money.
For a moment, as I saw my feet arc in the air, seemingly reaching for the knotted rope, I forgot that I would be alive again. I tried to scream but couldn't get anything
past the hemp that clamped my throat.
Thankfully, blissfully, I blacked out.
I opened my eyes, and everything was blurred, as if I were drunk on alcohol and reeling around the room. I realized that I still twirled on the end of the rope. It was only uncomfortable now. Someone handed me a knife; I reached up and cut myself down. I landed on the thick carpet that seemed to live under everything here.
The twisting colors, red to green to rusted scrap in a browning field, swept through me, and I knew now why I couldn't stop dying in front of them. I could feel. I could smell the sweat of my body. I touched my neck gently, slowly, marveling at the feeling as my fingertips brushed the skin. I was surprised I'd been able to stay away for a whole year and knew I'd never be able to again.
My mind seemed to freeze the scene around me in split second frames. I felt warm and relaxed, as if I'd just had an excellent brandy or had finished making love. Every particle of my body sparkled inside, knowing that it was alive, unmarked, and whole. The sensations I had felt during my private deaths paled in my memory.
I even felt a pinch of kindness toward the lifers around me, another symptom of resurrection. I stroked my wrist, my thigh, knowing, without looking, where they were. I could now hear the whispers of the lifers. Before I had had to read their lips. I was alive, sensitive again. Except for my eyes, the disease overpowers all my sensory organs when I am between deaths. Only death restores my senses to me. It even enhances them.
I knew the satiated feeling in my belly would soon be replaced by nausea. I would want to vomit, but I would only be able to spit into my hand and wipe my hand on my tunic. Then I would not even feel the spittle. I would slip into the deprivation I felt between deaths. But that time
was hours away, and I could feel again, more than I have ever felt when I've died alone, for myself. I inhaled deeply and looked up.
The lifers around me applauded softly as I took the rope from around my neck and threw it on the floor in front of me. The semicircle that pinned me in the corner was front-ranked with women, some of them daring to touch the edges of my clothing. One of them, sloppily made up and wearing clothes too cheap for this party, went so far as to, stroke the skin of my neck. Still feeling confused from the resurrection, I said nothing to her. I only wondered how she had managed to get in. Like the rest of the lifers around me, she had the shiny-eyed look of a finger toucher and whispered in that familiar hoarse croak that the drug creates. The hostess, her dress adorned with tiny jewels, pushed her way through the crowd and clutched my arm tightly.
"Wasn't that the best?" she yelled above her guests' voices. I looked at her, I felt her fingers knead my arm, and I almost pushed her away. But she had paid for it, all of it.
"I've heard of better deaths," said a man who'd made his way over to me. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and I could see his eyes glittering from fingertouch. The lifers had become silent, waiting for me to respond. I turned my back on him and faced the hostess again.
"You invite critics?" I asked her.
"I apologize for him," she said. "You can see he has pressed too much fingertouch." She looked at me. "He'll be asked to leave in a few minutes." I could hear some of the lifers mutter in agreement.
Silently the lifers came to me, one by one, and kissed the hand I held out to them. Their lips rasped against my knuckles, and one woman's tongue wetted a finger. Some
of them do that, hoping it will increase the chance of infection. They all looked at me expectantly, with that lifer expression of mingled excitement and awe. But I couldn't speak. I couldn't say it. The woman standing next to me squeezed my arm, but I kept silent. She finally tired of waiting.
"I have shown you," she said, using the words I should have used. "Follow me."
The lifers started whispering again, and the hostess relaxed, her hand curled loosely around my arm.
"That's Crandel, of the department stores," she whispered to me, pointing to a man walking toward us. "I was so lucky to get him to come tonight. Talk to him for me." Then she left me, her body moving fluidly around the room, touching everyone with a press of fingertouch, saying good-bye.
"I enjoyed it very much. I have wanted to meet you for some time," Crandel said, standing in front of me. I noticed that his blue eyes were not lit by fingertouch.
"Thank you," I said, delighting in the sound of his voice, yet wanting to be left alone with my reborn senses. I looked up, but the hostess was busy chatting on the opposite side of the room.
"I got my license only yesterday," he said. "I was lucky to get in tonight. What's it like anyway?"
I remembered the colors, the freeze-framing, the touch of a finger on skin, and the warmth. "It's like eating too many sweets." I always give frivolous answers, but they never notice.
"I've done everything else, I guess. They say it feels delicious. Better than fingertouch." He paused, his eyes looking at my hand. I knew he wanted to touch me again, but I could permit it only once. "You were captain on the ship," he said.
They all think I was the captain. "No. Weapons officer," I said, my words quick. He shrugged, as if it didn't matter.
"What are my chances of infection?" he asked, trying to disguise his feelings.
"Same as everyone else's," I said, looking for the hostess again.
"Is there no way to increase the chance?" he began. They all come to that question before long. He looked hungrily at my face.
"No," I said, my reborn senses allowing me to feel contempt. It tasted like tainted meat in my mouth.
I watched him press a pinch of fingertouch into the skin around his lips. His eyes-lifer eyes now-gleamed.
"Since the ice is broken, who wants to go first?" the hostess called from across the room, loudly enough so that even those in the back could hear.
"Excuse me," Crandel said softly, pulling away. I thought someone had called to him, but he walked to the window. Glancing back, he bowed slightly, then opened the window wide.
"I wish you a good death," he said. "Wish me the same." I could have mouthed the words I've heard so many lifers speak.
He climbed onto the sill, shoving the curtains aside with one hand and using the other to grip the frame. Then he stepped over the edge and was gone. I thought I could hear a scream as he fell to the ground fifty floors below, but I wasn't really sure.
I made my way to another corner, away from the lifers who were perfunctorily killing themselves. The hostess tried to touch me again, but I pulled away from her. I found a drink on a table and sipped its sourness while I watched them' commit suicide one by one. They weren't very creative; I've died so many times, in almost every
way. They were lifers, registered suicides, approved by the government. They knew what they were doing. They lusted for immortality through their death and hoped they would acquire the disease that raged within me and made me a DeadMan. They wanted to die and resurrect, to be like me.
Suddenly a woman was by my elbow. She held a thin knife in her hand and looked at it intently.
"Are you going to do it here?" I asked. She nodded, still looking at the knife. "Why do it by me?"
"Why not?" she replied.
"Why do it anyway?" I watched her and sipped my drink.
She smiled and opened her mouth as if to answer me. Instead, she brought the knife to her throat and slit it. The blood spattered my tunic, and she thumped to the floor.