"Edgar Pangborn - A Better Mousehole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pangborn Edgar)

would call him a dirty old man. He hadn't finished his Jameson. I thought he was hav-ing a dream, for the
bugs had come, but he looked up and said, I brought it on us, I brought it on the world. I and some other
billions, he said. I don't under-stand what he meant by that.
Irma seen the bugs and she screamed. Only five-six of them, nothing scary. I put my arms around her
to gentle her. Irma, I says, all they do is give you beautiful dreams. I want you should have some like I've
had. Let 'em bite a little, it don't hurt. But she screamed and tried to fight me off. She said, I don't want
to, I just want тАФ I just wantтАФ
I didn't listen. So hell-bent she should have dreams like mine, I didn't listen. The way she was perking
around, the p-js got twisted away from her little breasts, and I just hung on, too lame-brain dumb for
anything else. Them little things is like when she was a girl, I used to kid her about what would the babies
eat, only we never could have any. One bug lit there, and I just held her тАФ why, them bites don't hurt, I
got a hundred onto me, they don't even itch.
She didn't scream again. I felt a shock go through her and she said, Oh, oh, oh, a kind of cry-ing like
what I used to hear in bed, and her with a voice like country cream. The bug flew off. I found her mouth
and kissed her. Her face sagged away from me and she was dead.
I think Dr. West said, your little lady, she's asleep?
I carried her over to this lounge chair, sat here with her. I don't know what to do. I remember Dr.
West, he come over and stood by us, though I want-ed him to go away. I know I said something about
maybe some people just couldn't have such dreams.


He says, maybe it's that, or maybe she dreamed more than us, Al. Maybe this thing gave her too
big a dream for her to stand. Dreaming's a dangerous thing, he said, it's got a dark side. If the bugs shoot
in some-thing that makes the dreaming part of us blaze up, the way the rest of us can't take itтАФ
I told him I wasn't going to try to understand it no more. I said I ought to knowed you can't make
another person have a dream. It's not right, it's not right some-way.
Dr. West said more, I can't just bring it back. I think he said, dreaming's not a sickness but it's like
one, partly. It made the world what it is, different front ancient days, and it could un-make it.
I asked him not to notify no one, just go away and leave us be.
People will figure the bar is closed, they'll give us a bit of time before they start crowding in.
And there was something he said about how things might even get better with the bugs taking over, if
that's what they meant to do. I told him I didn't care much about the world, all's I ever wanted was to
have a de-cent life with work I knowed how to do and a nice woman and maybe some kids. I guess
that's when Dr. West went away. He's just a lonesome little guy trying to figure things out, I shouldn't of
spoke harsh.
See, it wasn't like I was trying to make you have my dream.
You look like you was dreaming. You look real sweet, I meant to tell you. I don't know why I
couldn't ever tell you.
тАФEDGAR PANGBORN