"Robert Reed - Night Calls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

тАЬBecause I wonтАЩt live long enough to see this next Night.тАЭ The grim
words made the old woman cackle. Already his grandmotherтАЩs eyes were
turning soft and dark, and by yearтАЩs end she would be living inside her own
endless NightтАФa suffocating experience that would make her bitter, small,
and hateful. тАЬBut my little Ferrum ... youтАЩll still be a young man when the
Night happens. Probably with your own wife and family to share the
experience with....тАЭ

The boy couldnтАЩt shake the images of insane people fighting in the
darkness, setting fires and spilling guts. When terrified, young boys will find
something very compelling about mayhem.

The bigger, the sweeter.

тАЬBut what does the Night look like?тАЭ he asked again. тАЬDoes anybody
know?тАЭ

тАЬOh, everyone knows what the sky holds,тАЭ she told him.

But Ferrum didnтАЩt. The subject never came to mind before this. He
was young and ignorant, curious, and very persistent. From that moment,
he would bombard adults with questions about this
once-in-a-thousand-years event. He interviewed his parents and teachers
and neighborhood adults. And what struck him about their confident
answers was that each vision was very similar, but no two were perfectly
identical.

Which brought an epiphany that twenty-four years and a considerable
amount of education hadnтАЩt wrung out of him:

Each eye, no matter how ordinary, inevitably sees its own Night.

FerrumтАЩs grandmother proved to be a flawed prophet. Ferrum
became a man, and the Sisters indeed were aligning themselves in
accordance with elegant scientific principles. But he stubbornly remained
unmarried and childless. There was only Rabiah in his life, and nothing
about their relationship seemed secure: Long periods of passionate,
desperate love would dissolve with a suddenness that always mystified
him, and even when their fight was finished, the tension between them
remained so deep and dangerous that a single careless word would surely
shatter their love forever.

Their worst battle stemmed directly from the Night. Several years
earlier, Ferrum paid a considerable fee to reserve time at an observatory
being built for the occasion. The large mirror and assorted optical
equipment cost a modest fortune, but the resulting telescope would reach
deep into the sky, harvesting details that larger instruments couldnтАЩt achieve
on an ordinary evening. Ferrum liked to boast about his investment: It
meant that so many heartbeats could be lived with one eye pressed against