"Smeds-MarathonRunner" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smeds Dave)

DAVE SMEDS - A Marathon Runner In The Human Race

AUTUMN LEAVES FLOATED onto the patio. Neil Corbin counted them: three from the
maple, six from the ornamental plum. Another shifting of the seasons -- what did
he care?

He keened his ears for the familiar chorus of shuffling shoes or the clicking of
Joe and Al's daily game of dominoes. But not a person stirred, and none were
visible save crazy Anne over in the shade of the umbrella table. Were it not for
the birdsong in the trees, Neil would have sworn his deafness had never been
cured.

A car turned into the driveway -- another source of silence but for the low moan
of tires on concrete. The vehicle stopped mere yards from Neil's chair. A
muscular, casually dressed young man emerged.

"Sorry I'm late, Gramps. Are you ready?"

Nell accepted his grandson's help in rising. "You're looking good," the old man
said.

"You will, too, Gramps. Come on. The clinic's expecting you."

Nell removed his elbow from the young man's grip. "I only move at one speed,
Matthew. You know that." He padded toward the car, wobbling but making steady
progress.

Matthew rolled his eyes, piled the luggage in the trunk, and went to the
driver's side.

"You forgot the trophy," Neil said.

The item lay beside the chair where Neil had been sitting. Grumbling, Matthew
retrieved it, placing it in his grandfather's lap rather than waste time
reopening the trunk.

Neil's hands closed over the statuette above the bronze plate that bore his
name. His hands automatically stroked the contours of the running figure, but
his attention wandered elsewhere, soaking in one last view of the place that had
been his home for so long. His glance tracked to the empty, dusty windows of the
far wing. His room had been the third from the end, just over the sign reading
"Shadyhome Retirement Community."

The once-immaculate grounds bore the first small signs of neglect. The grape
vine he had planted when he came to live there hung lush with fruit in the arbor
by the fish pond, its trunk almost as fat as a tree. He'd never seen so many
grapes on it, ripe and ready. His fellow residents always ate them too quickly.

"You must be almost the last guy to move out," Matthew commented. "I think you'd