"Chris Lawson - Written in Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lawson Chris)

written in blood
CHRIS LAWSON

This story is an elegant and incisive look at some of the unexpected
effects of high-tech bioscience, some of which may reach all the way
down to the very marrow of your bones ...

New writer Chris Lawson grew up in Papua New Guinea, and now
lives in Melbourne with his wife, Andrea, and son, Alexander. While
studying medicine, he earned extra money as a computer programmer,
and has worked as a medical practitioner and as a consultant to the
pharmaceutical industry. HeтАЩs made short fiction sales to AsimovтАЩs
Science Fiction, Dream-ing Down-Under, Eidolon, and Event Horizon. His
story тАЬUnborn AgainтАЭ appeared in our Sixteenth Annual Collection.


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In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.




T
hese words open the QurтАЩan. They were written in my fatherтАЩs blood. After
Mother died, and Da recovered from his chemotherapy, we went on a
pilgrimage together. In my usual eleven-year-old curious way, I asked him
why we had to go to the Other End of the World to pray when we could do it
just fine at home.

тАЬZada,тАЭ he said, тАЬthere are only five pillars of faith. It is easier than any
of the other pillars because you only need to do it once in a lifetime.
Remember this during Ramadan, when you are hungry and you know you
will be hungry again the next day, but your haj will be over.тАЭ

Da would brook no further discussion, so we set off for the Holy
Lands. At eleven, I was less than impressed. I expected to find Paradise
filled with thousands of foun-tains and birds and orchards and blooms.
Instead, we huddled in cloth tents with hundreds of thousands of sweaty
pilgrims, most of whom spoke other languages, as we tramped across a
cramped and dirty wasteland. I wondered why Allah had made his Holy
Lands so dry and dusty, but I had the sense even then not to ask Da about
it.