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

Failures plagued me. Things I had omitted or ignored, neglected. What I should have given and
hadn'tтАФto my friends, my relatives, to Mom and Dad, to you and Eleanor, my children, mostly Ann. I
felt the biting pang of every unfulfillment. Not only personal but in my work as wellтАФ my failures
as a writer. The host of scripts I'd written which did no one any good and, many, harm. I could
condone them once. Now, in this stark unmasking of my life, condoning was impossible, self-
justifying was impossible. An infinitude of lacks reduced to one fundamental challenge: What I
might have done and how irrevocably I fell short of almost every mark.

Not that it was unjust; not that the scales were forced out of balance. Where there had been good,
it showed as clearly. Kindnesses, accomplishments; all those were present too.

The trouble was I couldn't get through it. Like the tug of a building rope pulled from a distance,
I was drawn from observation by Ann's sorrow. Honey, let me see. I think I spoke those words, I
may have only thought them.

I became aware of lying by her side again, my eyelids heavy as I tried to raise them. The sounds
she made in sleep were like a knife blade turning in my heart. Please, I thought. I have to see,
to know; evaluate. The word seemed vital to me suddenly. Evaluate.

I drifted down again; to the isolation of my visions. I had left the theatre momentarily; the
picture on the screen had frozen. Now it started up again, absorbing me. I was inside it once
again, reliving days long gone.

Now I saw how much time I had spent in gratifying sense; again, I will not give you details. Not
only did I re-discover every sense experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as
wellтАФas though they'd been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as
any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been imagination in life now became tangible, each
fantasy a full reality. I lived them allтАФwhile, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness
to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.

Still always the balance, Robert; I emphasize the balance. The scales of justice: darkness
paralleled by light, cruelty by compassion, lust by love. And always, unremittingly, that inmost
summons: What have you done with your life?

An added mercy was the knowledge that this deep, internal review was witnessed only by myself. It
was a private re-enactment, a judgment rendered by my own conscience. Moreover, I felt sure that
somehow, every act and thought relived was being printed on my consciousness indelibly for future
reference. Why this was so, I had no notion. I only knew it was.

Then something strange began to happen. I was in a cottage somewhere, looking at an old man lying
on a bed. Two people sat nearby, a white-haired woman and a middle-aged man. Their dress was
foreign to me and the woman's accent sounded strange as she spoke to say, "I think he's gone."
"Chris!"


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Ann's tortured crying of my name ripped me from sleep. I looked around to find myself in swirling