"Jeffrey Thomas - The Hate Machines" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thomas Jeffrey)

fetched it out, gazed at it. His baby girl, chewing on the rubber hand. He
smiled. Tears rose in his eyes. And he pinned the photo on the gray padded
wall of his cubicle.
When he returned to work the next day, the photo was gone. Not turned to
face the wall. Gone.
He found it soon enough in his drawer. That didn't matter. It had been
removed. He even thought he saw a new smudged thumb print rudely on the
gloss of the photo itself, like the fingerprints those three boys had left
on his beloved child's flesh.
He had begun carrying the handgun in his briefcase again, starting
yesterday, his first day back since the murder. He did not know why. Only
that he felt better carrying it around with him. And now, he placed his
briefcase before him on his desk. The lock opened with a satisfying clack
like a gun's slide being worked back, a clip pushed into a handle. He
lifted the weapon from inside, like a distorted pearl from inside an
opened oyster, a pearl that had formed around an irritating grain of sand,
a core of hatred. It felt so good in his fist, like a collapsed star of
pure hate, a tea spoon of which would weigh many tons, a whole gun forged
out of such metal.
He sat there holding it, ogling it, a long time. And as was her talent,
Ruth came into his cubicle, sensing that he was not at work. Her deep
voice was already rasping forth ... but caught on the gravel in her throat
at the sight of the silvery gun.
Cardiff rose to his feet sharply. He pointed the gun at her face. At her
widening eyes, just inches away from the muzzle...
But he hesitated, confused, as if he had suddenly forgotten who he was.
And if he couldn't remember who he was, he couldn't remember why he wanted
to kill this woman.
Why should he kill her? What had she done? No, she was not the real enemy.
She was not the true source of his misery.
No. He turned, instead, to point his gun at the happy, evil sun/moon face
of that hideous infernal machine on his desk.
Ruth darted away as Cardiff opened fire. He barely noticed her, and
couldn't have cared less. He fired shot after shot into the little machine
of tarnished silver, shattering its orange face, its demonic grin.
He heard screams, running, an alarm for security. Tears streamed down his
face. Tears of great, crushing sadness. But also tears of joy, of triumph
... for Cardiff saw, fallen out of the decimated hate machine onto his
desk, its tiny and utterly withered heart.

й Jeffrey Thomas 2001. First published in infinity plus.
This story shares the setting of Jeff's collection Punktown, published in
May 2000 by leading independent publisher The Ministry of Whimsy Press.