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

beyond ten feet.

The room was familiar; the walls, the stucco ceiling. Fifteen feet by twelve. The drapes were
beige with brown and orange stripes. I saw a color television set hung near the ceiling. To my
left, a chairтАФorange-red upholstery like leather, arms of stainless steel. The carpeting was the
same orange-red.

Now I knew why things looked blurred. The room was filled with smoke. There was no odor though; I
found that odd. Not smoke; I suddenly changed my mind. The accident. My eyes were damaged. I was
not dismayed. The relief of knowing I was still alive transcended such concern.

First things first, I thought. I had to find Ann and tell her I was all right, end her suffering.
I dropped my legs across the right side of the mattress and stood. The bedside table was made of
metal, painted beige, a top as in our kitchen. Spell. F-o-r-m-i-c-a. I saw an alcove with a sink.
The faucets looked like golf-club heads, you know? There was a mirror hung above the sink. My
vision was so blurred I couldn't see my reflection.

I started moving closer to the sink, then had to stop. A nurse was coming in. She walked directly
toward me and I stepped aside. She didn't even look at me but gasped and hurried toward the bed. I
turned. A man was lying on it, slack-jawed, skin a pasty gray. He was heavily bandaged, an array
of plastic tubes attached to him.

I turned back in surprise as the nurse ran from the room. I couldn't hear what she was shouting.

I moved in closer on the man and saw that he was probably dead. How come someone else was in my
bed though? What kind of hospital would put two patients in the same bed?

Strange. I leaned in close to look at him. His face was just like mine. I shook my head. That was
impossible. I looked down at his left hand. He wore a wedding band exactly like the one I wore.
How could that be?

I began to feel an aching coldness in my stomach. I tried to draw the sheet back from his body but
I couldn't. Somehow, I had lost the sense of touch. I kept on trying until I saw my fingers going
through the sheet, then pulled my hand back, sickened. No, it isn't me, I told myself. How could
it be when I was still alive? My body even hurt. Proof positive of life.

I whirled as a pair of doctors rushed into the room, stepping back to let them at the body.

One of them began to blow his breath into the man's mouth. The other had a highpтАФspell. H-y-p-o-
dermic; yes. I watched him shove the needle end into the man's flesh. Then a nurse came running
in, pushing some machine on wheels. One of the doctors pressed the ends of two thick, metal rods
against the man's bare chest and he twitched. Now I knew that there was no relationship between


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the man and me for I felt nothing.

Their efforts were in vain. The man was dead. Too bad, I thought. His family would be grieved.