"Roger Zelazny - Divine Madness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

and placed it out in the hall.
It was the longest seizure he had ever had, but he did not really care.
He settled himself down within it and watched as the day unwound itself back
to morning.
His hangover returned as the day grew smaller, and it was terrible when
he got into bed again.
When he awakened the previous evening the drunkenness was high upon him
again. Two of the bottles he refilled, recorked, resealed. He knew he would
take them to the liquor store soon and get his money back.
As he sat there that day, his mouth uncursing and undrinking and his
eyes unreading, he knew that new cars were being shipped back to Detroit and
disassembled, that corpses were awakening into their death-throes, and that
priests the world over were saying black mass, unknowing.
He wanted to chuckle, but he could not tell his mouth to do it.
He unsmoked two and a half packs of cigarettes.
Then came another hangover and he went to bed. Later, the sun set in
the east.

Time's winged chariot fled before him as he opened the door and said
"good-bye" to his comforters and they came in and sat down and told him not
to grieve overmuch.
And he wept without tears as he realized what was to come.
Despite his madness, he hurt.
...Hurt, as the days rolled backward.
...Backward, inexorably.
...Inexorably, until he knew the time was near at hand.
He gnashed the teeth of his mind.
Great was his grief and his hate and his love.

He was wearing his black suit and undrinking drink after drink, while
somewhere the men were scraping the clay back onto the shovels which would
be used to undig the grave.
He backed his car to the funeral parlor, parked it, and climbed into
the limousine.
They backed all the way to the graveyard.
He stood among his friends and listened to the preacher.
".dust to dust; ashes to Ashes," the man said, which is pretty much the
same whichever way you say it.
The casket was taken back to the hearse and returned to the funeral
parlor.
He sat through the service and went home and unshaved and unbrushed his
teeth and went to bed.
He awakened and dressed again in black and returned to the parlor.
The flowers were all back in place.
Solemn-faced friends unsigned the Sympathy Book and unshook his hand.


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