"Barry Longyear - Silent Her" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

Silent Her
by Barry B Longyear


The light was lavender, the light was white, the light was red. When the light was white, they
would come, their heads hidden in black mists.
The one with the hard mouth would be there. Sometimes alone, sometimes with another, but
always the one with the hard mouth would come.
Hard Mouth brought the pain and the anger. Silent Her hated Hard Mouth. The light brought
Hard Mouth. Silent hated the light.
The white light would creep in through the window, climb the wall with the spots of yellow and
blue, and Silent would be afraid as Silent's eyes filled with tears, smearing the light.
Silent loved the dark and clung to it. The dark was safe. It was solitude, aloneness, quiet, an
absence of pain. But only the dark that came when the light went away was safe. The darks that
came when Silent hid in the cover, or closed the eyes, or held the hands over the eyes, these were
not safe.
Silent believed that if the light could be stopped from moving, Hard Mouth would stay away. The
edge of the light touched the window and Silent tensed with wishes to the light to go back. Silent
shook fists, shed tears, and the light did not stop. The light advanced until it filled that corner of
the place. Then Hard Mouth came.
One time the light did not begin as lavender and change to white. It began dim and gray. It was so
dim and so gray that Silent could hardly see the colored spots on the wall. Surely it was too dim
for Hard Mouth to come.
Silent laughed a silent laugh, pulled at the toes, for Silent had won. The light had stopped and
Hard Mouth would stay away.
There was a sound. It was followed by Hard Mouth's head hidden in its black mist. Silent's
universe shattered. Silent had failed; the wishes had failed. Only the light and its monster Hard
Mouth had succeeded. Then followed pain. Then followed anger.



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There was another black mist that would come. The other had kind lips. Kind Lips would always
stand on that side and look down at Silent with soft, dark eyes. Kind Lips had dark hair, eyes of
love, and a mouth that never looked angry.
Hard Mouth would stand at the other side when Kind Lips was there. Hard Mouth's hair was like
the yellow light. The eyes were as blue as the tiny spots on the wall, narrow and angry. The lips
were hard and pressed tightly together.
Kind Lips reached in a hand and stroked Silent's hair.
Hard Mouth reached in a hand and pinched Silent's arm.
Kind Lips pushed Hard Mouth away, and as the sounds of them struggling filled Silent's ears, the
pain wouldn't go away.



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