"John Meaney - Blood and Verse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meaney John)

Dark its glow, on aqua plane a carapace.

RainтАЩs silver lace. While overhead, beyond dour sky,

Dark-soaked, peer jewel suns arranged in space

By Ancient Ones of unknown race...

My words are throwaway: mere thumbnail background-sketches, preparation
for the work to come. I need local colour.

ConvenorsтАЩ Hall comes into view.

The structure is like the hotelтАЩs, but on a larger scale, with a lustrous
dark-green carapace that is speckled with black and indigo. The dark, polished
wooden substructure is rock-steady atop the waves.

White spume rushes beneath me as I take my pogo through an arcing
approach. At the jettyтАЩs end, churning waves, I stop. Someone throws a mag-line,
and I make it fast.

тАЬNot bad for a stranger.тАЭ

It is the young woman: more beautiful, even, than I had realized. Her voice is
clear, her stance relaxed, commanding. Her gaze holds mine.

тАЬMy thanks.тАЭ

Inadequate words. The poetry which flows between us is non-verbal, as old
as TerraтАЩs seas. I vault upwards to the jetty, but in that moment I break the visual
trance, and she is already turning away.

тАЬIf youтАЩll excuse meтАФтАЭ

She starts to wander back. To the right, abutting the jetty, floats a large vessel
with wooden decks. The crewтАФbare-armed, bearded men and tough-looking
womenтАФwave at the woman with whom IтАЩm in love.

A scorpion-tail crane lifts a full net from the boatтАЩs open hold.

тАЬHey, Shera. Gonna give us a hand?тАЭ

Shera. So thatтАЩs her name.
 тАЬI thought you couldnтАЩt manage alone.тАЭ She, Shera, glances back at me, then
reaches out to guide the net down onto the jettyтАЩs polished planks. тАЬWhere would
you be without me?тАЭ

One of the fishermen, a shaven-headed man with heavy earrings, says: тАЬAdrift
on the cold grey ocean, today and forever, my love.тАЭ It sounds like a song-fragment,
and good-natured laughter ripples among the crew.