"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

mechanical and electrical clocks?"
He went to the window and looked out at the advertising clock on the
Mutual Insurance Building. It said six o'clock, and the second hand did not
move.
"Well, it is possible that the confusion is not limited to myself. I
heard once the fanciful theory that a cold shower will clear the mind. For
me it never has, but I will try it. I can always use cleanliness for an
excuse."
The shower didn't work. Yes, it did: the water came now, but not
like water; like very slow syrup that hung in the air. He reached up to
touch it hanging down there and stretching. And it shattered like glass when
he touched it, and drifted in fantastic slow globs across the room. But it
had the feel of water. It was wet and pleasantly cool. And in a quarter of a
minute or so it was down over his shoulders and back, and he luxuriated in
it. He let it soak on his noggin, and it cleared his wits at once.
"There is not a thing wrong with me. I am fine. It is not my fault
that the water is slow this morning and other things are awry."
He reached for the towel and it tore to pieces in his hands like
porous wet paper.
He now became very careful in the way he handled things. Slow1y,
tenderly and deftly he took them so that they would not break. He shaved
himself without mishap in spite of the slow water in the lavatory also.
Then he dressed himself with the greatest caution and cunning,
breaking nothing except his shoe laces, and that is likely to happen at any
time.
"If there is nothing the matter with me, then I will check and see
if there is anything seriously wrong with the world. The dawn was fairly
along when I looked out, as it should have been. Approximately twenty
minutes have passed; it is a clear morning: the sun should now have hit the
top several stories of the Insurance Building."
 But it had not. It was still a clear morning, but the dawn had not
brightened at all in the twenty minutes. And that big clock still said six.
It had not changed.
Yet it had changed, and he knew it with a queer feeling. He pictured
it as it had been before. But the sweep second hand had moved. It had swept
a third of the dial.
So he pulled up a chair at the window and watched it. He realized
that, though he could not see it move, yet it did make progress. He watched
it for perhaps five minutes. It moved through a space of perhaps five
seconds.
"Well, that is not my problem. It is that of the clock maker, either
a terrestrial or a celestial one."
But he left his rooms without a good breakfast, and he left them
very early. How did he know that it was early since there was something
wrong with the time? Well, it was early at least according to the sun and
according to the clocks, neither of which institutions seemed to be working
properly.
He left without a good breakfast because the coffee would not make
and the bacon would not fry. And in plain point of fact the fire would not
heat. The gas flame sprung up from the pilot like a slowly spreading stream