"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Craters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

And the world collapses.

Thais how she describes it. The world collapses. The air smells of blood and
smoke and falling plaster. Her skin is covered in dust and goo and she has to pull
some kind of stone off her legs. Miraculously, theyтАЩre not broken, but as the day
progresses, part of her wishes they were, so she wouldnтАЩt be carrying dead
through the ruins of the Roman area, up the back stairs, and into the thin Paris
sunlight.

She canтАЩt go to the rebuilt pyramid, even now, nor to the Touleries Garden
or even look at the Seine without thinking of that little boy, the smile on his face as
he bounces, anticipating a day in the museum, a day with his mother, a day
without cares, like five-year-olds are supposed to have.

Were supposed to have.

Before everything changed.

****

The driver has left me. He will be back in two days, he says, waiting for me near the
checkpoint, but I do not believe him. My trust only goes so far, and I will not pay
him in advance for the privilege of ferrying me out of this place. So he will forget, or
die, or think I have forgotten, or died, whatever eases his conscience if a shred of his
conscience still remains.

I walk deep into the camp, my pack slung over my shoulder. My easy walk,
my relatively clean clothing, and my pack mark me as a newcomer, as someone who
doesnтАЩt belong.

The heat is oppressive. ThereтАЩs no place out of the sun except the tents the
Red Cross and its relative out here, the Red Crescent, have put up. People sit
outside those tents, some clutching babies, other supervising children who dig in the
dirt.

Rivulets of mud run across the path. Judging by the flies and the smell, the
mud isnтАЩt made by water. ItтАЩs overflowing sewage, or maybe itтАЩs urine from the lack
of a good latrine system or maybe itтАЩs blood.

ThereтАЩs a lot of blood here.

I do no Miming, record no images. The Western world has seen these places
before, countless times. When I was a child, late-night television had infomercials
featuring cheerful men who walked through such places with a single well-dressed
child, selling some religious charity that purported to help people.

Charities donтАЩt help people here. They merely stem the tide, stop the
preventable deaths, keep the worst diseases at bay. But they donтАЩt find real homes
for these people, donтАЩt do job training, donтАЩt offer language lessons, and more
importantly, donтАЩt settle the political crises or the wars that cause the problems in the