"Bruce Holland Rogers - Whalesong" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

Two black immensities floated like zeppelins in the space in front of her, one a little larger than the other.
Far away, as though through many walls of glass, she heard Carissa's feet on the floor above her.
Whales, she saw in the dim light. They were whales. And when Carissa turned the faucet upstairs and the
water began to flow in the pipes, the whales slowly turned their bodies toward the familiar sound, and the
larger one cried, Skyreeee? Aaaaaaa-ank.
The smaller one answered, Aaaaaa-ank. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk. Then the water in the pipes
stopped.
Helen looked at the tools in her hands. The metal was warm. She thought of David's hands on them,
and then of her own hands in David's hands. Large hands, she remembered. When had he last held her
hands in his, sheltering them, nesting them? So very long ago. How far she and David had drifted.
Distantly, she heard Carissa returning to bed. Helen turned and started slowly away. She switched off the
blue light. Slow, difficult steps. At the bottom of the stairs, she felt for a moment that she would float
away on a black current, back into the darkness. But then she mounted the first step and felt a little better
with each subsequent progression toward the yellow light and the air.
***


She woke before dawn, and started the coffee brewing. In her bathroom she saw David's tools lying
on the counter. She picked up the screwdriver, and it felt hard and cold in her hand. She made herself
laugh a short, uncertain laugh. Whales.
She stepped into the shower, and as the water began to fall, she heard Skyreeee? Skyreeee?, and an
answering Awoooooot. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk. This time she couldn't make herself laugh. Instead
she heard a sound come from inside her like air escaping, reluctantly, from a balloon. Eeeeeee. Short
breath. Eeeeeeee. And then she managed a sob, and she began to add her own song to the song of the
whales. She sang for the seas, for the ancient seas that surrounded us once, that carried our voices
across such distances that no matter how far we drifted, we were never alone.
Published by Alexandria Digital Literature. ( http://www.alexlit.com/ )

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