"Spider Robinson - Very Bad Deaths" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

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- Chapter 3

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file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/074348861X___3.htm (1 of 7)24-12-2006 1:50:07
 - Chapter 3




2.
The room was about as isolated as a dorm room can be. It was at the far end of a hallway in the north
wing of Nalligan, on the third or top floor. Next to it was not another room, but the stairwell. So, no
neighbors on either side. And the room across the hall was not just uninhabited but uninhabitable: it had
no door, and you could see fire damage inside.
I was not surprised at the remoteness of the place. By that time I could already smell him, through the
closed door. Even though someone had wedged the hallway window open.
You probably think you have some conception of his smell, but you're wrong. You're thinking of very
bad body odor with the volume turned all the way up. Smelly smelled way worse than that. Body odor
was a component, to be thoroughly sure. Rank armpits, fetid groin, cheesey feet, unwashed
undergarments, inadequately wiped ass, all were there. But they struggled to be noticed among so many
stinks. Death itself was in there, faintly, coming and going, like when there's a dead rat inside the wall.
So were spoiled milk, meat turned green, and rotting vegetablesтАФin particular, rotten celery. But there
was something else, something I couldn't identify. It was as bad as all the others, but worse, too, because
it wasn't even organic. It was a chem lab, industrial plant kind of bad smell. The kind that would make a
cat leave the room.
This was before I even opened the door. Standing in a well-ventilated hallway, outside a room he had
inhabited for at most a matter of hours. I braced myself for something five times worse, unlocked the
door, and walked in.
It was at least ten times worse.
It seemed to take a small effort to walk through, as though the air were Jell-O on the verge of setting.
Part of the smell made the eyes water, but another part dried them, so they canceled out. Each breath had
to be a conscious act; reflex refused to take in this air without constant confirmation that it was really
okay. It is possible to totally isolate the nose and nasal passages from the act of respiration, but it usually
takes years of yogic training to learn how. I reinvented the trick on the spot. It didn't help enough. It is
possible, I learned to my dismay, to smell with your tongue. Tastebuds work even on air, and they have
no off switch.
"Hi," I said, to be exhaling.
His appearance was less startling than his aroma, but not by much. He stood no taller than five eight or
nine, and weighed close to three hundred pounds. He didn't seem to have shoulders. His skin looked like