"Robert Charles Wilson - Divided by Infinity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Charles)

having a choice. I miss her still. Which is as it should be.
But I had given in too often to the vulgar yearnings. Mourned
youth, mourned better days. Made an old manтАЩs map of roads not
taken, from the stale perspective of a dead end.
Reached for the clonazepam and turned my hand away,
freighted every inch with deaths beyond counting.
I wonder if my captors understand this?


I went back to ZieglerтАФnodding at Deirdre, who was
disappointed to see me, as I vanished behind the bead curtain.
тАЬThis doesnтАЩt explain it.тАЭ I gave him back You Will Never Die.
тАЬExplain,тАЭ Ziegler said guilelessly, тАЬwhat?тАЭ
тАЬThe paperbacks I bought from you.тАЭ
тАЬI donтАЩt recall.тАЭ
тАЬOr theseтАФтАЭ
I turned to his bookshelf.
Copies of In Our Time, Our Mutual Friend, Beyond the Mexique
Bay.
тАЬI didnтАЩt realize they needed explaining.тАЭ
I was the victim of a conjurorтАЩs trick, gulled and embarrassed.
I closed my mouth.
тАЬAnomalous experience,тАЭ Ziegler said knowingly. тАЬYouтАЩre
right, Soziere doesnтАЩt explain it. Personally I think there must be a
kind of critical limitтАФa degree of accumulated unlikeliness so great
that the illusion of normalcy can no longer be wholly sustained.тАЭ
He smiled, not pleasantly. тАЬThings leak. I think especially books,
books being little islands of mind. They trail their authors across
phenomenological borders like lost puppies. ThatтАЩs why I love
them. But youтАЩre awfully young to experience such phenomena.
You must have made yourself very unlikely indeedтАФmore and
more unlikely, day after day! What have you been doing to yourself,
Mr. Keller?тАЭ
I left him sucking oxygen from a fogged plastic mask.


Reaching for the bottle of clonazepam.
Drawing back my hand.
But how far must the charade proceed? Does the universe
gauge intent? What if I touch the bottle? What if I open it and peer
inside?
(These questions, of course, are answered now. I have only
myself to blame.)


I had tumbled a handful of the small white tablets into my
hand and was regarding them with the cool curiosity of an
entomologist when the telephone rang.
Pills or telephone?
Both, presumably, in SoziereтАЩs multiverse.