"Bruce Holland Rogers - Lifeboat On A Burning Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS

LIFEBOAT ON A BURNING SEA

Deserters.

When I can't see the next step, when I can't think clearly about the hardware
changes that TOS needs in order to become the repository, the ark, the salvation
of my soul, I think of deserters.

I think of men on the rail of a sinking tanker. For miles around, there are no
lights, only water black and icy. A lake of flame surrounds the ship. Beyond the
edge of the burning oil slick, a man sits in the lifeboat looking at his
comrades. The angle of the deck grows steeper. The men at the rail are waving
their hands, but the one in the boat doesn't return. Instead, he puts his back
into rowing, rowing away. To the men who still wave, who still hope, the flames
seem to reach higher, but it's really the ship coming down to meet the burning
sea.

Or this:

The arctic explorer wakes from dreams of ice and wind to a world of ice and
wind. In the sleeping bag, his frostbite has thawed and it feels as though his
hands and feet are on fire. It is almost more than he can endure, but he tells
himself he's going to live. As long as his companion is fit enough to drive the
sled, he's going to live. He hobbles from the tent, squints against the
sunlight. When he finds the dogs and sled gone, he watches for a long time as
the wind erases the tracks.

In these fantasies of mine, the dead bear witness.

From the bottom of the sea, dead sailors wave their arms.

Frozen into the ice, a leathery finger points, accuses.

There must have been a time when I wasn't aware of the relentless tick of every
heartbeat, but I don't remember it. My earliest memory is of lying awake in my
bed, eyes open in the blackness, imagining what it was like to be dead.

I had asked my father. He was a practical man.

"It's like this," he said. He showed me a watch that had belonged to my
grandfather, an antique watch that ran on a coiled spring instead of a battery.
He wound it up. "Listen," he said.

Tick, tick, tick, I heard.

"Our hearts are like that," he said, handing me the watch. "At last, they stop.