"patrick_o'_leary_bad_boy" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'leary Patrick)

of Mrs. Hardington for next to nothing. You are blind. But I forgive you. I see
your self-absorption. And I see how it will warp me as a man: I will play
baseball with my children though I hate the game. I will take them camping
though I loathe picnic tables and marshmallows. I will accept their mediocrity
and they will grow to hate me because they will never feel as though they
deserve my love. Charity is a crippling thing. Nevertheless, you are my father.
You are in me as is the bat. I forgive you because the alternatives are grief
and anger and an even more miserable than average puberty."
What can you say to a boy who has been bitten into genius by a bat?
"Son..." he said. "Wake up."
And his heavy lids are dragged open by his arching brows.
His father could barely contain himself. "Do you see? Look. Can you see? The bat
is out of the cage."
"Awesome!" said the boy.
How it hurts him to watch his mind working, working, working.
O please, he prays.
Please. Please let him be special.
Whatever wounding is necessary, don't let him grow up to be normal. The father
closes his eyes and watches his son grow blonde into dark brown, average into
himself, boy into accomplished man, hungrily anticipating his inevitable
excellences, his loneliness.
His life outside the cage.



й Patrick O'Leary 1998

Listen to Patrick reading this story at the Seeing Ear Theater.



Patrick O'Leary is the author of two novels. Door Number Three ("One of the
best SF novels of 1995" нн Publisher's Weekly) and The Gift (finalist for the
1998 World Fantasy Award нн Best Novel). His stories have appeared in Talebones
magazine. His poetry has appeared in Literary Magazines across North America.
His non-fiction has appeared in Crawdaddy and The New York Review of Science
Fiction.