"Dan Simmons - A Winter Haunting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

I know what youтАЩre thinking. ThereтАЩs the old journalism anecdote of William Randolph Hearst needing
someone to cover the Johnstown flood and sending a young cub reporter. It was the kidтАЩs big break. The
next day the novice cabled back this lead to HearstтАЩs paper: тАЬGOD SAT ON A LONELY HILL
ABOVE JOHNSTOWN TODAY, LOOKING DOWN IN SORROW AT NATUREтАЩS FIERCE
DESTRUCTION.тАЭ Old-timers swear that Hearst did not hesitate ten seconds before cabling back this
response: тАЬFORGET FLOOD STORY. INTERVIEW GOD.тАЭ

I say I died forty-one years ago and your response is,Forget the story about Dale. Who cares? Tell us
what itтАЩs like to be deadтАФwhat is the afterlife like? What is it like to be a ghost? Is there a God?

At least, these would be my questions. Unfortunately, I am not a ghost. Nor do I know anything about
any afterlife. When I was alive, I did not believe in ghosts or heaven or God or spirits surviving the body
or resurrection or reincarnation, and I still do not. If I had to describe my current state of existence, I
would say that I am a cyst of memory. DaleтАЩssense of me is so strong, so cut off and cauterized from the
rest of his consciousness by trauma, that I seem to exist as something more than memory, something less
than life, almost literally a black hole of holistic recollection formed by the collapsing gravity of grief.
I know this does not explain it, but then I do not really understand it myself. I know only that Iam and
that there was aтАФтАЬquickeningтАЭ might be the best wordтАФwhen Dale decided to return and spend the
winter at the farm where I once lived and where I died.

And, no, I have no memory of my death. I know no more of that event than does Dale. Evidently oneтАЩs
death, like oneтАЩs birth, is so important as to be beyond recall.

When I was alive I was only a boy, but I was fairly smart and totally dedicated to becoming a writer
someday. I spent years preparing for thatтАФapprenticing myself to the wordтАФknowing that it would be
many more years before I could write a real short story, much less a novel, but practicing with opening
paragraphs for stories and novels nonetheless.

If I were borrowing an opening for this tale, I would steal it from ThackerayтАЩs boring 1861 novelLovel
the Widower:
Who shall be the hero of this tale? Not I who write it. I am but the Chorus of the Play. I make remarks
on the conduct of the characters: I narrate their simple story.
ThackerayтАЩs ominiscient тАЬIтАЭ was lying, of course. Any Creator stating that he is a simple Chorus and
impassive observer of his creaturesтАЩ actions is a hypocrite and a liar. Of course, I believed that to be true
of God, on the few occasions when I considered that He might exist at all. Once, when Dale and Mike
and I were having a chickenhouse discussion of God, my only contribution was a paraphrased quote
from Mark Twain: тАЬWhen we look around at the pain and injustice of the world, we must come to the
ineluctable conclusion that God is a thug.тАЭ IтАЩm not sure if I believed that then or now, but it certainly
shocked Mike and Dale into silence. Especially Mike. He was an altar boy then and most devout.

But IтАЩm digressing even before I begin the story. I always hated writers who did that. I still have no
powerful opening line. IтАЩll just begin again.

Forty-one years after I died, my friend Dale returned to the farm where I was murdered. It was a very
bad winter.

Dale Stewart drove from western Montana to central Illinois, more than 1,700 miles in 29 hours, the
mountains dwindling and then disappearing in his rearview mirror, endless stretches of autumn prairie
blending into a tan and russet blur, following I-90 east to I-29 southeast to I-80 east to I-74 south and
then east again, traveling through the better part of two time zones, returning to the checkerboard