"Jeff VanderMeer - Ghost in the Machine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vandermeer Jeff)

"Thank you for my ears, my eyes, my heart..."
Martel never hears my cynical rebellion; he believes I am but a shell. I am not a shell. The body dies, the
tissues of the brain rotting into dust, but I am the same person. The very same.

I leave the basement. At the top of the stairs, Martel's cleverness is evident. The floor forms a sprawling
chessboard of black and red tiles. Whenever he plays, I am his King. Why does he choose me? Why
does he bind me to him?

Once outside the Great Hall my steps quicken and I can believe I am alive. I have walked this path so
often I am surprised the marble has not worn away. My thoughts flutter and dapple in the spray of light.
Martel does not allow other simules out of storage on Sundays. I have complete run of the house.

Up the stairs to the second floor, into the catacombs of white rooms, one after the other, dozens I am
sure, so many that I have yet to enter them all. Nor do I wish to, for when the last room is discovered,
then will I be in a prison indeed, its boundaries mapped out for me.

I walk into the East Wing, enter a room overlooking the pine forest. The windows sparkle with the light.
The grass is so green outside. A chest is tucked away in a corner of the room. Every day I inspect it,
hoping it will be open. The key, I am sure, lies within Martel's breast pocket. But how do I steal it?

The significance of this chest? A clue to Martel's motivations, for above the chest, painted in dazzling
acrylics, hangs a painting of a green-eyed woman, plump, tall. The brush strokes have begun to fade, but
the touch of paints is bold, masterful. Her eyes bleed emerald, but soft, soft; her cheeks robust, her
mouth stretched without effort into a smile. She speaks to me; she tells me that she is a prisoner like me,
caught forever between the four walls of the frame.

But the mystery will not be solved today. Disappointed, I retrace my steps, wishing my limbs could lift or
wrench. What joy the greatest pain could bring. I cannot imagine it.

Martel waits in the Great Hall, watching my descent.

"Why," he begins, biting on his lower lip. "Why must you go up there?"

"It passes time, Master."

"Passes time?"

"Between your commands."

Martel winces, mutters sharply. He is an old man, though surgery has made him look young. Trapped in
flesh.

I leave him to his muttering, what business is it of mine?, and wander the rooms like a proper ghost.

Later, the sun falling the moon rising, I meet him by accident. He scuttles from hall to hall on his private
missions, pretending to ignore me. I merely look in his direction, try to pin him with my ethereal gaze.

At dusk, the solimind wraps me in its arms and sings me to storage. I think of Martel and his green-eyed
women, the rapture of flesh on flesh. The moistness and the murmuring. The soft exhalations of breath in