"Now You See It" - читать интересную книгу автора (Matheson Richard)

an effigy of what I'd been, a statue entitled Impotence (in
more ways than one) or, better still. Up On the Shelf for Good.
A voiceless, torpid lump, ostensibly brainless.

There, you see, is the rub. For the real torment was that in
mat dumb shell I existed in, an active and observant brain
was struggling for the means to express itself. That is the
horror of a stroke, believe me.
Perhaps if mis had happened ten or twenty years later,

Now You See K... 13

there might have been some medical-surgical procedure by
which I could have ended my night- (and day-) mare.

Then again, perhaps not. Even my son, devoted as he was
to, me, might have found it inescapable to A&F (Accept and
Forget). Who could have blamed the man? I had become
more a piece of furniture than a family member. Not hard to
take a piece of furniture for granted.

I go on at length about my plant-kingdom persona so you
will understand how all these strange events could have
taken place in my presence without a single person in-
volved giving it a second thought that I was mere. But then,
do we concern ourselves with me observational capacities
of a turnip?

Anyway, Maximilian (my son) had enough problems of
his own, as you will discover.

A few more explanatory comments before I launch into my
account of that fateful day.

Because of Maximilian's loyalty to me, I had a nurse (one
Nelly Washington) who stayed with me constantly (in the
beginning, anyway), providing those attentions I could not
request but obviously requiredЧeating and elimination to
the fore.

Nelly was no Venus but she had an inner beauty of com-
passion, a good deal of patience, and (luckily for her as well
as for me) an abundant sense of humor. Most of all. God
bless her giant heart, she never allowed me to remain de-
feated or helpless. She was a rock of reassurance on which I
wobbled constantly until some semblance of hope oozed
back into my brainЧalong with a few restorative drams of
blood.

I'm glad she happened to be absent on the day it all took