"Mark Morris - The Other One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Mark)

in as many days. He tried to look absorbed in his task. He didn't want
them to know that he was doing it because there was nothing else to do. He
still hadn't looked out of the window, but he felt too dispirited to do so
today. Besides, he didn't want to have to fall into a routine. That would
be a sure sign of stagnation, which would undoubtedly delight them.
After a while he checked to see whether his food had arrived yet; it
hadn't. He hated their petty manipulative methods but he didn't show it,
he just shrugged again as if he couldn't care less. He lay on his bed,
wondering whether to masturbate, whether to give them something to ogle
at. In the end, though, he didn't. He just fell asleep.
Perhaps it was his hunger that enabled him to walk the city in his dreams.
He strode with purpose and confidence, and seemed to know exactly where he
was going. It was twilight, the outlines of the buildings bold and dark
and sure. The sky was like blue marble, venous with darker cloud.
His boot heels trampled the miles underfoot, clicking on paving slabs,
crunching on gravel, whispering on asphalt. The city was a vibrant place,
full of sights both wondrous and terrible. His eyes feasted on it all -
the fire-eaters and snake charmers, the three boys kicking a puppy to
death with their bare feet for amusement, the great artists reduced to
sketching caricatures of tourists on the quayside. A crone lifted her
skirts and flaunted her diseased pudenda; an old man, eyes white with
cataracts, offered him a live lobster, its claws snapping. He skirted a
crowd who were gathering around a gallows, listened for a while to a
lonely black man playing a lonely trumpet on a street corner. He watched
fireworks bursting in the sky, a street fight involving young men in
immaculately tailored suits. And he embraced it all, for this was his
city, his domain, and these people, whether paupers or socialites, were
his people.
As usual he failed to reach his destination, wherever it might be.
Initially he tried to incorporate the ringing into his dream, but
eventually it became too shrill and too insistent and pulled his sleep,
and thus the city, apart - for now at least. He awoke with his face
half-buried in the pillow, one arm hanging over the edge of the bed,
fingers touching the floor. He was desperate to pee and he had a full
erection. As ever, he found the incompatibility of this infuriating.
They'd stripped him naked again and, it seemed, hidden his clothes. He was
so annoyed he felt like pissing despite his erection, spraying himself and
whatever else happened to get in the way. But if he did that he'd be
playing right into their hands; they might even start up with the electric
shocks again. The ringing was coming from the telephone, which he never
used. Trying hard to conceal his nervousness, he picked it up.
He didn't hold the receiver too close to his ear; he wasn't that stupid.
Silence rushed at him from the earpiece like gas, filling the room, making
him dizzy. He was terrified of speaking in case there was something wrong
with the voice that answered him, in case it didn't sound quite human. Far
away, behind the silence, he thought he could hear the eerie ringing cry
of tortured metal.
How long he stood there holding the receiver inches from his face he
wasn't quite sure. It seemed like a long time, long enough certainly to
make his arm first ache, and then jump with muscle spasms. At last,