"Steve Perry - Other Toys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

OTHER TOYS
By Steve Perry
****

THE FEAR SITS IN MY BELLY like a lump of rock from the bottom of the sea,
cold, icy, indigestible, stretching my bowel, weighing me down. Worse than pain,
worse than death, worse than anythingтАФ the thought that God has forsaken me
clutches at me with claws so sharp they pierce to my very soul, causing my essence
to spew forth like a fount of spiritual blood.

God has forsaken me. I am doomed.

Doomed.

What could I have done? What vile act could be worth this, this the ultimate
curse? Surely I am a sinner, never have I claimed otherwise, but surely my crimes
have been in the doing of small sins, never drawing near the murky swamp of heresy,
never veering from True Devotion, nary a misstep from The Path. This I can attest
to, this I can affirm, for in my heart I know. I am not тАФ neverтАФ have I felt moved
to the slightest apostasy; always have I kept the Faith, always, by my lifeтАжand yet
тАФ

And yet, God no longer answers my prayers. I am abandoned and the thought
of never feeling His light upon my worthless self again tears asunder my being.
Please, my Lord, forgive me for my errors! In Your infinite mercy, pity me, for I do
not know what I have done to deserve this, the worst of all punishments.

Please!

If he hadnтАЩt been on vacation, John Cartas would never have noticed the
piece. The article in the paper was short, a filler, really, buffed in the back pages
under the ad for tires and the new woman sportswriterтАЩs column. In what the city
editor called the тАЬScience Section,тАЭ trying to keep a straight face while he said it. No
byline. They either pulled it off the wire or had one of the drones hack it out:

ANNA-BY-THE-SEA тАФ A team of visiting paleontologists from the
University of Arizona have made what one representative terms тАЬan amazing
discoveryтАЭ in a cave near the town of Anna-by-the-Sea.

According to Professor Peter Lipton, head of the team, the searchers have
uncovered the remains of a new and unique dinosaur.

тАЬIt appears to be the entire skeleton,тАЭ Lipton said, тАЬweтАЩve never seen anything
quite like it before.тАЭ

LiptonтАЩs team hopes to complete the excavation of the dinosaur before winter
sets in.

If heтАЩd been on the beat, dealing with the scum of the city, he would have
been too busy writing the news to read it. He was a good reporter, if getting long in