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

Toward the end, she had shrunk to half her size, her skin so translucent, he
could see her veins. The hospital room had deep blue walls, a bed with
restraints on it, and a television perched in the comer. The restraints were
down, the television off, and the window open, casting sunlight against the
awful blue.

Dylan sat beside the bed every day, from the moment visiting hours began until
the moment they ended. At noon on August 23rd, she opened her eyes and found
his. Her gaze was clear for the first time in three days, for the first time
since he had brought her to the hospital.

"Dylan?" Her voice was no more than a rasp.

He took her too-small hand. It no longer fit just right in his. "I'm here,
Geneva."

"You know those two tiny beings on the lake equivalent?" Each word was an
effort. He leaned forward so that he could hear her. Her grip was tight in his.
"I think in about eight minutes, they're going to see a supernova."

She closed her eyes. He couldn't hear her breathing. He pushed the nurse call
button, once, twice, then three times.

The grip in his hand tightened. Geneva was looking at him, a small smile on her
face. "Don't mourn, Dylan," she said. "Forever, remember?"

"I remember," he said, but by that time, she had loosened her grip on his hand.
The nurses came in, with their equipment and needles, pushing him aside. He
watched as they checked her, as they looked under her closed eyelids, and felt
for her pulse. One of them turned to him, and shook her head. He shoved his
hands in his pockets and walked out of the room, a much poorer man than he had
been when he entered.

On All Hallow's Eve, he packed his car to the light of the single streetlight.
During the afternoon, he had taken the cat over to Ross's, explaining that he
was going on a short trip, and wasn't sure when he would be back. He waited
until dark, packed the car, and headed west.

He had awakened with the idea, the jigsaw puzzle complete in his mind. He knew
how to find her, and how they could be together, forever, as she had said. As he
drove over the Coast Range, the puzzle became clearer; the answer seemed right.
Steam engine time, she had said. But who would have thought that a philosophy
professor would be the first to ride the rails?

Geneva had. She knew that philosophers were used to broad concepts of the mind.

He pulled into the public beach at Lincoln City, grabbed a blanket and a cooler
from the back of the car, and walked to the loose sand. He was careful to sit on
a driftwood log, untouched by high tide.