"Reed, Robert - OurPrayers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

ROBERT REED

OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU

*
Weather stories have filled science fiction recently. From John Barnes' novel
Mother of Storms to Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather, the changing climate of
these United States and, indeed, the world has riveted us.

Today it's a German crew, one blond under the camera and the other shoving his
microphone at faces, slowing work that never moves fast enough. With a grating
tone of false pity, the reporter asks how we are coping with this latest
tragedy. Eight centimeters last night, ten or twelve upriver, and do we know
that the latest estimate is for a crest almost a meter higher than our levee? He
acts exceedingly confident. about his math, and milled beneath everything. Did
he come here this morning hoping to find us washed away? Or maybe he wants us to
give up, to let the levee fail for him, his camera able to catch the angry brown
water charging down our streets. Just like in Tylertown. The CNN crew got that
bit of video, and everyone in the world has seen it at least twenty times.
Six-plus billion people have seen my sister's house vanish under the flood, and
it's been under ever since. Two months ever since.. You've seen it. That little
white house on the right? With rose bushes and the big blue spruce? Sure you
have....

Anyway, the Germans are working their way toward me. I've slept four hours in
the last fifty, living on sweet rolls and ibuprofin, and I'm so tired that I'm
shaking. A big strong guy by design, but these sandbags weigh tons and tons. And
my mood is past lousy. I'm sick of cameras and the rain, and I'm sick of being
worried, and suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have to answer anyone's
questions. I don't have to be the noble, suffering flood victim. If I want, I
could throw one of these sandbags into the asshole's chest. I could. And
besides, I'm thinking, isn't that a clearer answer than anything words can
manage?

Only I don't get my chance, as it happens.

What happens is that this fellow two up from me -- about the quietest, littlest
guy on the levee -- detonates when asked, "How do you feel?" He doesn't bother
throwing a sandbag using fists instead, screaming and putting a few good shots
into the German's astonished face. It's lovely, Perfect. Sweet. Then I help pull
them apart, the German making a fast retreat...and afterward it seems as if
everyone on the levee is working harder. Faster. Honesty is everywhere, thicker
than river water, and it feels as if it's us against the world. Don't ask me
how, but it does.

The rains began last year, but not like this. A record September, but a
reasonable record. Then a wet October, a cold dry November, and three months of
crippling snow and ice. A winter to remember, we heard. Then a spring thaw that