"Nancy Kress - Phillipa's Hands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

BOSTONтАФA TWA 707 jetliner failed to take-off at Logan Airport late last night and plumetted into
Boston Harbor, killing at least 257 people. The plane, Flight 18 from Boston to Washington, achieved
take-off speed but failed to leave the ground at the end of the runway, which ended at the Harbor. The
plane sped forward and sank in the 63-degree water.

The jetliner remained two-thirds submerged in the water, enabling at least 9 passengers and airline
personnel to escape through the two doors they managed to open.

тАЬThere was this roar and then a huge splash,тАЭ said Elizabeth Brattle, who witnessed the crash from the
deck of her sailboat moored in the Harbor. тАЬWaves rolled in, nearly swamping the boat. You could hear
people screaming. It was horrible."

By twenty minutes after the disaster, diving teams were on the scene to assist in the recovery. Divers are
expected to remain on the scene throughout the night.

The cause of the plane's failure to lift into the air is unknown. TWA spokesperson Richard Connington
expressed shock and concern but cautioned against speculation that

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There was a second article, an eyewitness account from one of the passengers who escaped, and a
picture of the drowning plane. Philippa didn't read the second article. The four rosy hideous women bent
nearly double with wailing and grief, and their beautiful tears pooled on the wooden floor. Philippa
watched them, feeling their pain, feeling all the pain and terror of the great plane reaching the end of the
runway and still rolling along the ground, of the dizzying lurch into the water, the sudden-impact. Did the
water come in right away? Did the lights go out? People screaming, choking in the darkness, and later
that other choking and darkness, of the survivors.

Sam had taken down the crucifix when he took down the ancient dingy needlepoint worked by one of
Philippa's great-aunts and the framed painting of a woodland brook which Philippa had bought at The
Art Shoppe in Carter Falls. She wondered if she would have been able to see the crucifix, this time. The
pink thread of light shot out from one of the crying women, Philippa couldn't see which one, and touched
the first joint of her right thumb.

At the base of the thumb, just below the knuckle, was a burn blister where she had foolishly touched the
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pan taking an apple pie for Sam out of the oven. Sam, eating the pie at her kitchen table. Holding the
square of heated metal of the wallpaper stripper against this room, while she followed him with the scrub
bucket. Holding the tips of her fingers while they watched TV and never saying anything against them,
anything at all about stupidity or pride or need.

At least 257 people. тАЬYou could hear people screaming."

The knife appeared on the bed. The glowing women cried and wailed. All the sorrow of the world
seemed to flow through them, the world beyond this room, the Philippa had once thought to renounce