"Geoff Ryman - Everywhere" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ryman Geoff)

So what the prisoner in Hull does, is work in the prison, get some
readies and pay to have a client put inside the AngelтАЩs head.

And all the other computers that keep track of everyoneтАЩs jobs or the
questions they asked, or just what theyтАЩre doing, that all gets uploaded to
the Angel.

BlaydonтАЩs there. ItтАЩs got all of us, grinding fish heads. Every time
someone makes tea or gets married from Carlisle to Ulverton from
Newcastle to Derby, that gets run through the Angel. And that Angel is
laying down the story of the North.

My watch told me that, sitting in that tram.

Then everyone else starts coming back in, but not Dad and
Granddad, so I go out to fetch them.

The clouds were all pulled down in shreds. It looked like the cotton
candy that Dad makes at fetes. The sky was full of the church choir in their
little airplanes. For just a second, it looked like a Mother Angel, with all her
little ones.

I found Dad standing alone with Granddad. I thought it was rain on my
DadтАЩs face, but it wasnтАЩt. He was looking at Granddad, all bent and twisted,
facing into the wind.

We got to go Dad, I said.

And he said, In a minute son. Granddad was looking up at the planes
and smiling.

And I said itтАЩs raining Dad. But they werenтАЩt going to come in. So I
looked at the Angel and all this rust running off it in red streaks onto the
concrete. So I asked, if itтАЩs an Angel of the North, then why is it facing
south?

And Granddad says, Because itтАЩs holding out its arms in welcome.
 He didnтАЩt want to go.

We got him back into the tram, and back home, and he started to
wheeze a bit, so me Step Mum put him to bed and about eight oтАЩclock she
goes in to swab his teeth with vanilla, and she comes out and says to Dad, I
think heтАЩs stopped breathing.

So I go in, and I can see, no heтАЩs still breathing. I can hear it. And his
tongue flicks, like heтАЩs trying to say something. But Dad comes in, and they
all start to cry and carry on. And the neighbours all come in, yah, yah, yah,
and I keep saying, itтАЩs not true, look, heтАЩs still breathing. What do they have
to come into it for, itтАЩs not their Granddad, is it?