"Barry N. Malzberg and Jack Dann - The Starry Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

heavens are exploding, the stars igniting, the wall of God shattering. His hands
tremble on the instruments. He tries to steady himself, but what shakes him cannot
be resisted. It is that fracture across the design of Revelation and he can only see the
stars, that star, lifted beyond his measure, tongues of fire cutting the hue of surface.
Now in this time there was a decree and Simon Augustus desired that all were to
be taxed. That star is taxed; it is yielding of itself.

Remember the distance, Thomas thinks. This is not happening now; it happened
months ago. Any distance closer to this distraught and weeping fragment and he, the
instruments, the ship itself, would fracture with the star.

Behold the heavens in their majesty.

Father Thomas is alone in this enclosure of wire and darkness, shielded from the flat
consequence of devastation, but not, he knows, from its horror, from its force. It is
good that he is alone here, that he has been dispatched on this dark and terminal
probe without company ("the solitude of a priest is the absence of multitudes" he
had suggested, departing), and yet he can feel the awful and enclosing pressure, the
presence of this destruction as he could never have imagined. The host, the tyranny
of the Lord Himself, is not sufficient to protect him from this imminence.

This star, this lost star, has in the high reckoning of the final hour reached the end of
all trials. There is no ascension.
 ┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖


God's Craft: An Appreciation

Rachel, still almost six, dreams about only one painting, the painting with the thick
daubs of blue and white and yellow, the painting that was exploding right there in the
museum, and the explosions have awakened her. But she's not scared. Well, maybe
a little scared. Ever so quietly, so as not to disturb Mommy and Daddy who are now
making thumping noises in their bedroom, she tiptoes to her desk.

Pale moonlight and the absent wash of the streetlamps illuminate Rachel's sketchpad.
She stands before her desk in her fuzzy blue pajamas with the dots and reindeer and
flicks through the drawings until she gets to The Stars Nit. She knows what "nit"
means. She learned about knitting from Miss Catalphason in kindergarten last year,
and she understands that is exactly what Mr. Gogh saw God doing to the exploding
stars. God was knitting them all together to make a face of fire. She saw the fire in
the museum and wondered why she was the only one. She had to stand back from
the painting because she could feel the heat and did not want to get burned, but other
people didn't notice at all, and a fat woman with a black hat and a big bow in the
front even tried to touch it. Her fingers were not burned, so Rachel knew that the fat
woman was probably an angel or one of God's helpers.

Rachel stares at her sketch and feels disappointment. It does not really look anything
like Mr. Gogh's painting. There's no fire in there, no color, no raised surfaces like
little mountains and rivers of fiery paint. Just stupid lines on a stupid page, that's all.
There are no church steeples, buildings, big fat stars, or faces of fire in her sketch,