"Ian Watson - Slow Birds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

"No, I want to go," he protested.
"Eh?"
At that moment the slow bird, having hung around long enough,
vanished; and Jason stared at where it had been, speechless.
In the end his friends and uncle had to lead him away from that
featureless spot on the glass, as though he was an idiot, someone touched
by imbecility.
But Jason did not long remain speechless. Presently he began to teach.
Or preach. One or the other. And people listened; at first in Atherton, then
in other places too.
He had learned wisdom from the slow bird, people said of him. He had
communed with the bird during the night's vigil on the glass.
His doctrine of nothingness and silence spread, taking root in fertile
soil, where there was soil remaining rather than glassтАФwhich was in most
places, still. A paradox, perhaps: how eloquently he spokeтАФabout being
silent! But in so doing he seemed to make the silence of the glass lakes
sing; and to this people listened with a new ear.
Jason traveled throughout the whole island. And this was another
paradox, for what he taught was a kind of passivity, a blissful waiting for a
death that was more than merely personal, a death which was also the
death of the sun and stars and of all existence, a cosmic death which
transfigured individual mortality. And sometimes he even sat on the back
of a bird that happened by, to speak to a crowdтАФas though chancing fate
or daring, begging the bird to take him away. But he never sat for more
than an hour, then he would scramble down, trembling but quietly
radiant. So besides being known as "The Silent Prophet," he was also
known as "The Man who rides the Slow Birds." On balance, it could have
been said that he worked great psychological good for the communities
that survived; and his words even spread overseas. His mother died proud
of himтАФso he thoughtтАФthough there was always an element of wistful
reserve in her attitude . . .



Many years later, when Jason Babbidge was approaching sixty, and still
no bird had ever borne him away, he settled back in Atherton in his old
homeтАФto which pilgrims of silence would come, bringing prosperity to the
village and particularly to the Wheatsheaf; managed now by the daughter
of the previous landlord.
And every Mayday the skate-sailing festival was still held, but now
always on the glass at Atherton. No longer was it a race and a
competition; since in the end the race of life could not be won. Instead it
had become a pageant, a glass ballet, a re-enactment of the events of many
years agoтАФa passion play performed by the four remaining villages.
Tuckerton and all its folk had been glassed ten years before by a bird
which destroyed itself so that the circle of annihilation exactly touched
that edge of the glass where Tuckerton had stood till then.
One morning, the day before the festival, a knock sounded on Jason's
door. His housekeeper, Martha Prestidge, was out shopping in the village
so Jason answered.