"Stan Nicholls - Throwing A Wobbly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nicholls Stan)

Throwing a Wobbly
a short story by Stan Nicholls

The bumblebee wheezed.
At least, that's what it sounded like to Vaughan Cramer. But being only
half awake and fully hungover, he wasn't sure.
He blinked into the shaft of watery sunlight cleaving the window and ran
his tongue over arid lips. The experience compared to staring at a
searchlight point blank while rubbing his mouth with emery cloth.
Can insects wheeze? he wondered sluggishly. Probably not. But the way
things had gone recently he was prepared to believe anything.
Cramer shifted slightly. An empty vodka bottle rolled from the bed and met
the carpet with a silken thud. He winced. Pain was an inadequate word to
describe what was going on inside his head.
The bumblebee resembled a black and orange striped ping-pong ball
decorated with pipe cleaners. It looked far too heavy for something as
ambitious as flight. The simple act of walking seemed to present it with a
major challenge. So how the hell it got into the flat and on to the
windowsill was a mystery.
He watched its repeated attempts to climb the side of a flowerpot. Each
time it started to crawl up, its weight and exhaustion sent it sliding
back down. Its continuous buzzing could have passed for the sound made by
an electric shaver. Above, and just beyond reach, the corpulent plant
sagged with excess mass, bloated stalks drooping.
Losing interest, he groped for the TV remote control in folds of
bedclothes. He punched a channel and muted the sound. At the bottom of the
screen the time and date display read 07.53 - E+122.
A film clip showed a busy street. Obese people were struggling to mount a
bus. In the background, stout rush hour travellers waddled to work. This
was replaced by footage of a protest meeting. Thousands of grossly
proportioned demonstrators were crammed into what he took to be Trafalgar
Square. Ample arms held aloft placards and banners. Another scene
appeared. A fat man with the unmistakable air of a politician, in a smart
if bulging three-piece suit, pontificated silently from behind an imposing
mahogany desk.
Then it was back to the studio. Presenters Ricki and Jodie filled the
famous couch, wedged together so tightly they gave the impression of being
joined at their beefy forearms, like overweight Siamese twins. Rigid
grimaces fixed on their plump faces, they were going through the morning
papers, indicating garish tabloid headlines with fingers akin to pork
sausages. She had all the grace and elegance of a barrage balloon. He was
sweating freely.
Cramer almost smiled. There wasn't much to be said in favour of the
present situation but at least it was democratic. As with death and taxes,
there were no exceptions.
Or none proven, he reminded himself.
He was taking in the ungainly spectacle of a vast TV weather girl
obscuring her map when a banshee wailed. It kept doing until he strained
for the phone on his bedside table.
Before he could croak a greeting, his caller boomed, 'Cramer?