"a_taste_of_heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lovegrove James)

I had become to his fictions and fabrications. Neither
his savagely altered appearance nor his insistence
that this story, of all his stories, was true gave me
any reason to suspect that I wasn't just being spun
another yarn. I'd decided to hear him out because I
thought it would be good for him to get whatever was
plaguing him off his chest and because I hoped that
this unburdening would be a stepping stone to getting
at the real problem, the real reason why he looked
and spoke like a soul in torment. I'd also decided that
when he was done I would bundle him into a taxi and
get him to a hospital. Even if his spirit was beyond
repair, his body could be mended.

Harold drew a deep breath and sent it hissing out
through his nostrils. "I was coming up through
Streatham when it happened. At first I didn't know
what was going on. I felt it all around me, like
something vast and unseen turning over in its sleep,
but I'd no idea what it was. The sky rumbled like a
jet was passing overhead, though one wasn't, and the
air turned a different colour, darkening several
shades. The street I was walking down was busy,
full of mid-morning shoppers and pedestrians, and
for a few seconds, while this 'shift' was taking place,
while the city twitched and stirred and scratched its
nose, everyone paused and looked up and around and
at each other like there was something they were
supposed to be communicating, some thought, some
vital piece of information they were supposed to be
sharing. And then the rumble faded and the light
brightened again and, the moment past, everyone
dropped their heads again and carried on with their
lives. A few children, for no apparent reason, started
crying. A dog that was barking fell silent. That was
it. Nothing else was different. Yet I knew -- knew --
that things had changed. Ever so slightly, but
perceptibly. And I started walking again, warily
now, glancing around me in every direction, hoping
to find what was new about the city, what London
had done to itself.

"It didn't take long. I hadn't gone more than half a
mile when I came across a street I didn't recognise. I
said I knew London as well as a husband knows his
wife, didn't I?"

"'Knows the body of his wife,' were your precise
words."