"James van Pelt - Parallel Highways" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pelt James Van)

captained the Flying Dutchman. During a storm he swore an oath that he'd sail around the Cape of Good
Hope or be damned forever."

"What does that have to do with us?" Jack said. he could feel the anger welling inside him. She's always
bringing it up, he thought. She can't give it a rest.

"We should have let that car in. You shouldn't have said, тАШDamned if I'll let someone cut me off this
morning!' They died because of you." Her voice wasn't angry, but it was flat and tired, as if announcing
news she'd accepted long ago.

His heart pounded in his ears. She won't leave it alone, he thought. It's always my fault. He remembered
the morning this started, holding his own in his lane, the early commute streaming toward its destination,
when he saw the mini-van coming toward him from the on-ramp. He'd measured its speed, watched it,
and saw that it was going to merge in front of him. He was in a hurry. He was edgy in that special manner
that driving in traffic made him. The min-van approached. Jack would have to give way to let him in.
"Damned if I'll let someone cut me off this morning," he'd said, and he smashed the accelerator. For a
moment, the mini-van paralleled them, the driver leaning to his left, searching for a break in traffic.
He must not have seen the broken-down car on the shoulder. Jack didn't until the last second, just a
glimpse of a jack holding up the driver's side read, or a tire laying on the road, of someone on his knees
holding a lug wrench. Then the mini-van plowed into the parked car.

Jack pictured the crash. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it anymore." He
heard his voice straining.

Debbie didn't say anything. Curves held Jack's attention for a moment. The road had gone to two lanes,
and he had to concentrate on driving. Then the hills opened up, and the ocean spread out before them.
The highway fell toward the sea. Soon they were driving a road that held close to cliff edges overlooking
stony places where waves lapped dully against kelp-encrusted rock. Even through the window, he could
smell the salt and rot.

Then Debbie said, "I would have done the same thing, Jack. I wouldn't have let the van in that morning."

Jack remembered the smoke from the accident. As they had driven on, a pillar of smoke had risen
behind them, climbing into the sky like an angry spirit, black and red and writing.

The memory of smoke clear in his mind, he drove on.

They stayed on the costal highway for 3,700 impossible miles before a car coming toward them crossed
the lane, catching their side, driving them off the road, over the cliff, tumbling against the rocks for
five-hundred feet. The last thing Jack heard was water hissing against hot metal. Then the sea rushed into
the car.


***


No one knows about pain but those who are in pain. Only the hurting know what it is. Memory of
pain is not pain. Description of pain is not pain. Small hurts are not like great ones reduced. True
pain lives in the ever-present moment, expecting nothing, owing to nothing, overwhelming all
other thoughts. For a thousand years, Jack tried to scream. Water filled his lungs. Everything was