"Zelazny, Roger - DIVINE~2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Roger Zelazny's "Divine Madness"

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"... I IS THIS _?hearers wounded-wonder like stand them makes and
stars wandering the conjures sorrow of phrase Whose. . ."_
He blew smoke through the cigarette and it grew longer.
He glanced at the clock and realized that its hands were moving
backwards.
The clock told him it was 10:33, going on 10:32 in the P.M.
Then came the thing like despair, for he knew there was not a
thing he could about it. He was trapped, moving in reverse through
the sequence of actions past. Somehow, he had missed the warning.
Usually, there was a prism-effect, a flash of pink static, a
drowsiness, then a moment of heightened perception...
He turned the pages, from left to right, his eyes retracing their
path back along the lines.
_"?emphasis an such bears grief whose he is What"_
Helpless, there behind his eyes, he watched his body perform.
The cigarette had reached its full length. He clicked on the
lighter, which sucked away its glowing point, and then he shook the
cigarette back into the pack.
He yawned in reverse: first an exhalation, then an inhalation.
It wasn't real-the doctor had told him. It was grief and
epilepsy, meeting to form an unusual syndrome.
He's already had the seizure. The dialantin wasn't helping. This
was a post-traumatic locomotor hallucination, elicited by anxiety,
precipitated by the attack.
But he did not believe it, could not believe itЧnot after twenty
minutes had gone by, in the other directionЧnot after he had placed
the book upon the reading stand, stood, walked backward across the
room to his closet, hung up his robe, redressed himself in the same
shirts and slacks he had worn all day, backed over to the bar and
regurgitated a Martini, sip by cooling sip, until the glass was filled
to the brim and not a drop spilled.
There was an impending taste of olive, and then everything was
changed again.
The second-hand was sweeping around his wristwatch in the proper
direction.
The time was 10:07.
He felt free to move as he wished.
He redrank his Martini.
Now, if he would be true to the pattern, he would change into his
robe and try to read. Instead, he mixed another drink.
Now the sequence would not occur.
Now the things would not happen as he thought they had happened,
and un-happened.
Now everything was different.
All of which went to prove it had all been an hallucination.
Even the notion that it had taken twenty-six minutes each way was