"Nicholas Royle - Flying Into Naples" - читать интересную книгу автора (Royle Nicholas)

instead.
As I watch the updraughts of ash and dust I see a recognisable group of
shapes take vague form in the clouds. The German tourists -- he with the
red shirt, the camcorder, the stomach, she of the shorts and smart
training shoes, still frozen as an exhibit of statuary -- descend through
the rising dust as if on a platform. The thicker swirls beneath me envelop
them.
They pass into the throat of the giant and are followed by a facsimile of
Flavia, falling like a slow bomb. A cast of myself -- whether from Pompeii
or the hotel, I don't know -- is next, slipping in and out of focus behind
curtains of clogging ash.
The last thing I remember is the buffeting and turbulence the 737 went
through as it passed over Vesuvius on its descent into Naples, and
suddenly the whole crazy city with its strange visions and coating of fine
dust -- from a waiter's shoes to the air rattling in lungs -- makes
perfect sense.

й Nicholas Royle 1993, 1997
This story appeared in Interzone #77.