"China Mieville - Details" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mieville China)

trees.
"And I saw the thing again."
Mrs. Miller's voice was stretched out as if she was dreaming. My
mouth was open and I huddled closer to the door.
"I saw it in the leaves," she said forlornly. "As I turned I saw the
leaves in such a wayтАж just a chance conjuncture, you understand? I
noticed a pattern. I couldn't not. You don't choose whether to see
faces in the clouds. I saw the monstrous thing again and it still
reached for me, and I shrieked and all the mothers and fathers and
children in that park turned and gazed at me, and I turned my eyes
from that tree and whirled on my feet to face a little family in my
way.
"And the thing was there in the same pose," she whispered in
misery. "I saw it in the outlines of the father's coat and the spokes of
the baby's pushchair, and the tangles of the mother's hair. It was just
another mess of lines, you see? But you don't choose what you
notice. And I couldn't help but notice just the right lines out of the
whole, just the lines out of all the lines there, just the ones to see the
thing again, a little closer, looking at me.
"And I turned and saw it closer still in the clouds, and I turned again
and it was clutching for me in the rippling weeds in the pond, and as


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China Mieville - Details


I closed my eyes I swear I felt something touch my dress.
"You understand me? You understand?"
I didn't know if I understood or not. Of course now I know that I did
not.
"It lives in the details," she said bleakly. "It travels in thatтАж in that
perception. It moves through those chance meetings of lines. Maybe
you glimpse it sometimes when you stare at clouds, and then maybe
it might catch a glimpse of you, too.
"But it saw me full on. It's jealous ofтАж of its place, and there I was
peering through without permission, like a nosy neighbor through a
hole in the fence. I know what it is. I know what happened.
"It lurks before us, in the everyday. It's the boss of all the things
hidden in plain sight. Terrible things, they are. Appalling things.
Just almost in reach. Brazen and invisible.
"It caught my glances. It can move through whatever I see.
"For most people it's just chance, isn't it? What shapes they see in a
tangle of wire. There's a thousand pictures there, and when you
look, some of them just appear. But nowтАж the thing in the lines
chooses the pictures for me. It can thrust itself forward. It makes me
see it. It's found its way through. To me. Through what I see. I
opened a door into my perception."
She sounded frozen with terror. I was not equipped for that kind of
adult fear, and my mouth worked silently for something to say.