"Ian R. MacLeod - Papa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

messy room, the way they manage to fill up so much space from those little bags and with all the life they
bring with them. If only I could program my vacuum cleaner not to tidy it all up into oblivion as soon as
they go, IтАЩd leave it this way forever.
SaulтАЩs stuffed the metacam back into the top of his traveling bag on the floor. I can see the white
corner of the palette sticking out, and part of me wants to take a good look, maybe even turn it on and
try to work out if he really meant that stuff about showing alternate realities. But I go cold at the thought
of dropping or breaking itтАФitтАЩs obviously his current favorite toyтАФand my hands are trembling slightly
even as I think of the possibilities, of half worlds beside our own. I see an image: me bending over the
metacam as it lies smashed on the tiled floor. Would the metacam record its own destruction? Does it
really matter?
I leave the room, close the door. Then I open it to check that IтАЩve left things as they were. I close the
door again, then I pull it back ajar, as I found it.
I go to my room, wash, and then the bedhelper trundles out and lifts me into bed, even though I could
have managed it on my own. I blink three times to turn off my eardrums. Then I close my eyes.
Sleep on demand isnтАЩt an option that Doc FanianтАЩs been able to offer me yet. When IтАЩve mentioned
to him how long the nights can seemтАФand conversely how easily I drop without willing it in the middle of
the afternoonтАФhe gives me a look that suggests that heтАЩs heard the same thing from thousands of other
elderly patients on this island. IтАЩm sure a solution to these empty hours will be found eventually, but
helping the old has never been a primary aim of technology. WeтАЩre flotsam at the edge of the great ocean
of life. We have to make do with spin-offs as the waves push us further and further up the beach.
But no sleep. No sleep. Just silence and whiteness. If I wasnтАЩt so tired, IтАЩd pursue the age-old
remedy and get up and actually do something. It would be better, at least, to think happy thoughts of this
happy day. But Saul and Agatha evade me. Somehow, theyтАЩre still too close to be real. Memory needs
distance, understanding. ThatтАЩs what sleepтАЩs for, but as you get older, you want sleep, but you donтАЩt
need it. I turn over in shimmering endless whiteness. I find myself thinking of gadgets, of driftwood
spindrift spinoffs. Endless broken gadgets on a white infinite shore.
Their cracked lids and flailing wires. If only I could kneel, bend, pick them up and come to some kind
of understanding. If only these bones would allow.
There was a time when I could work the latest Japanese gadget straight out of the box. I was a
master. VCR two-year-event timers, graphic equalizers, PCs and photocopiers, the eight-speaker stereo
in the car. Even those fancy camcorders were no problem, although somehow the results were always
disappointing. I remember Hannah walking down a frosty lane, glancing back toward me with the bare
winter trees behind her, smiling though grey clouds of breath. And Hannah in some park with boats on a
lake, holding baby Bill up for me as I crouched with my eye pressed to the viewfinder. I used to play
those tapes late at night after she died when Bill was asleep up in his room. IтАЩd run them backward,
forward, freeze-frame. IтАЩd run them even though she wasnтАЩt quite the Hannah I remembered, even
though she always looked stiff and uneasy when a lens was pointed at her. I had them re-recorded when
the formats changed. Then the formats changed again. Things were re-digitized. Converted into
solid-state. Into superconductor rings. Somewhere along the way, I lost touch with the technology.


In the morning, the door to the room where my grandchildren are sleeping is closed. After persuading
my front door to open, and for some stubborn reason deciding not to put on my autolegs, I hobble out
into the sunlight and start to descend the steps at the side of my house unaided. Hand over rickety hand.
 ItтАЩs another clear and perfect morning. I can see the snow-gleam of the mainland peaks through a
cleft in the island hills, and my neighbors the Euthons are heading out on their habitual morning jog. They
wave, and I wave back. WhatтАЩs left of their greying hair is tucked into headbands as though it might get in
the way.
The Euthons sometimes invite me to their house for drinks, and, although heтАЩs shown it to me many
times before, Mr. Euthon always demonstrates his holographic hi-fi, playing Mozart at volume levels that