"Richard Matheson - What Dreams May Come" - читать интересную книгу автора (Matheson Richard)

glancing across my shoulder. "Maybe you can't understand that butтАФ"

"If it's a dream," he interrupted, "why don't you try to wake up?"

I whirled to face him. "All right, that's exactly what I'll do," I said. "Thank you for a very
good suggestion."

I closed my eyes. All right, you heard the man, I told myself. Wake up. He's told you what to do.
Now do it.

I heard Ann's sobbing getting louder. "Don't," I said. I couldn't bear the sound of it. I tried to
back off but it followed me. I clenched my teeth. This is a dream and you are going to wake up
from it right now, I told myself. Any second now I'd jolt awake, perspiring, trembling. Ann would
speak my name in startled sympathy, then hold me in her arms, caress me, tellтАФ

The sobbing kept on getting louder, louder. I pressed both hands against my ears to shut it out.
"Wake up," I said. I repeated it with fierce determination. "Wake up!"

My effort was rewarded by a sudden silence. I had done it! With a rush of joy, I opened my eyes.

I was standing in the front hall of our house. I didn't understand that.

Then I saw the mist again, my vision blurred. And I began to make out forms of people in the
living room. Gray and faded, they stood or sat in small groups, murmuring words I couldn't hear.

I walked into the living room, past a knot of people; none of them were clear enough for me to
recognize. Still the dream, I thought. I clung to that.

I walked by Louise and Bob. They didn't look at me. Don't try to talk to them, I thought. Accept
the dream. Move on. I walked into the bar room, moving toward the family room.

Richard was behind the bar, making drinks. I felt a twinge of resentment. Drinking at a time like
this? I rejected the thought immediately. A time like what? I challenged my mind. This was no
special time. It was merely a depressing party in a bleak, depressing dream.

Moving, I caught glimpses. Ann's older brother Bill, his wife Patricia. Her father and stepmother,



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her younger brother Phil, his wife Andrea. I tried to smile. Well, I told myself, when you dream
you really do it up right, no detail overlooked; Ann's entire family down from San Francisco no
less. Where was my family though? I wondered. Surely I could dream them here as well. Did it
matter, in a dream, that they were three thousand miles away?

That was when a new thought came to me. Was it possible that I had lost my sanity? Perhaps the
accident had damaged my brain. There was a thought! I clutched at it. Brain damage; weird,
distorted images. Not just a simple operation going on but something complex. Even as I moved