"Christopher Priest - The Discharge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

They had surrendered to my fears. Fire licked around them.

I could see none of the flames myself, but gradually the smoke was thickening. It heaped along the
ceiling, a dark grey cloud, heavy with the vapors of scorched pigments.

I realized at last that I had to leave before I became trapped by the spreading fire. I went quickly across
the sub-floor area, struggled with the old iron-handled doors, fell out into the darkness. I walked stiffly up
the cobbled alley that ran behind the building, turned a corner, then another, walked into one of
Muriseay's market streets where the hot night was filled with people, lights, music and the raucous,
thrilling sound of traffic.

For the rest of the night I stumbled through the backstreets and alleys of the town, trailing my fingertips
along the rough texture of the stuccoed walls, obsessed with thoughts of the paintings that were being lost
while the building burned. My agonies were being consumed but I was released from my past.

I went through the port area again in the hour before dawn. The paintings must have smouldered for a
time before properly igniting the shabby wooden walls of the warren, but now the whole of my building
was consumed with flames. The doorways and windows I had sealed up for privacy had become
apertures once more, square portals into the inferno within, white and yellow fire roaring in the gales of
sucked air. Black smoke belched out through vents and gaps in the roof. Fire crews were ineffectually
jetting cascades of water against the crumbling brick walls. I watched their efforts as I stood on the quay,
a small bag with my belongings by my side. In the east the sky was lightening.

By the time the fire crews had brought the flames under control I was aboard the first ferry of the day,
heading for other islands.

Their names chimed in my mind, urging me on.

The End