"Gene Wolfe - Green Glass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

like I'm one of those kids who won't grow up."
"Only I know you're not," Josephine said. "Go on."
"I'd like to have an apartment of my own, sure. Or maybe a place I'd share
with somebody and we'd split the rent, but I pay five hundred a month to mom and
dad for rent and food and they need the money. It's a really nice apartment in a
really nice building. My dad's retired now, and they couldn't afford to keep it if it
weren't for the money I kick in. None of this is what I started out to say."
"No hurry," she told him. "We're walking anyway, and we might as well talk
to pass the time."
"Well, I ran into the super one day, and he wanted to know if I'd seen what
they'd done to the roof. I said no, and he said there were all sorts of trees and
flowers and stuff up there now, like a park for the tenants, and we could bring guests
up if we wanted. So I went up and had a look around. It was maybe six o'clock, and
the sunset was really, really pretty.
"The roof was, too. There were pots and planters. Little trees and flowers and
so on. Ferns, too. I remember a lot of ferns. Maybe I didn't notice the flowers so
much because they were closing. They close up at night just like stores, or some of
them do. I read about that someplace."
Josephine nodded.
"Looking at that sunset with all that green around me reminded me of a big
green-glass bottle I had when I was a kid. I'd put bugs and things in there so I could
study them. That's what I thought I was doing, anyway. I'd take it along when we
went to the park, and if I found an interesting bug or a big spider I'd put it in there.
Back home, I'd watch it and pretend I was a scientist. My mother finally got tired of
finding it with dead bugs in it and pitched it out."
"I don't think I like where this is going."
"Neither do I. Another thing I wanted to say is that I really did learn something
from watching all the bugs in that green bottle. What I learned was that sometimes
they thought they were seeing other bugs when they saw their own reflections in the
glass. I think that's what's going on with us--we're seeing our own reflections,
seeing things we've got in our brains. The aliens or whatever they are may not even
know we're seeing them. But we are." He recalled Shep Fields' band and added,
"We hear them, too. Maybe we'd even smell them, if we got close enough."
"I think so, too," Josephine said, "only I think they know about it. You knew
about it when you watched your bugs, and you were just a little kid. They're a lot
smarter than you. Smarter than you were then, I mean."
"Smarter than I am now."
"Smarter than both of us put together, probably. I still want to get out--to get
back home. Did you ever turn your bugs loose, Joey?"
He could not remember, but he said he had and his mother had freed more.
"Then we've still got a chance. If ... It's another one."
The tall man striding toward them waved. "Captain Anno of the Past Police at
your service." To the wave, he attached a jocular salute. "I know you think I'm just a
character in a movie. You need me just the same, and I'm here to help you."
"You mean you're not?" Josephine sounded incredulous.
"No, ma'am. The film was a little piece of propaganda on our part. You're
entering a period of increased Zkogan activity, and our film was intended to get you
accustomed to the concept and show you that we're the good guys. Which we are.
You want to be rescued, don't you? If you don't, I'll split."
"You bet we do," Josephine said.