"Alexander Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Journey Across Three Worlds (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Literally vanished. In the blink of an eye, the trees and bushes were
back again, like a repeated sequence in a colour cinerama film. The bench
opposite, with its deep seat, was again in place and the girl in the blue
coat - so almost listed missing - sat there with her book. Everything
looked, ostensibly, as before; but only ostensibly - some inner voice
instantly doubted it. I even looked around me to check my impressions and
contentedly reflected: "Nonsense, it's all the way it was. Exactly...."
"No, not exactly," reflected that other inner voice.
Was it another voice? I was arguing with myself, but my conscious mind
seemed to be split in half for the argument was more like a dialogue between
two utterly unidentical and dissimilar egos. Any thought that arose was at
once countered by another which intruded from somewhere or from somebody by
suggestion, but was aggressive and masterful.
"The benches are the same."
"They are not. On Pushkin Boulevard they're green, not yellow."
"The alley walks are the same."
"These are narrower. And where's the granite kerb?"
"What kerb?"
"And there's no lawn."
"A lawn?"
"Beside the court. There used to be a tennis-court here."
"Whe-ere?"
By now I was looking around with a feeling of growing alarm. The
double-ego feeling disappeared. I suddenly found myself in a new and
strangely altered world. When you walk along a street where everything is
dear to you and familiar to the eye, you do not notice the little things,
the details. But let them suddenly disappear, and you stop, caught by a
feeling of confusion and alarm. The surroundings were only similar to, but
not exactly the same as those I knew - I, who had strolled along the
boulevard walks a thousand times or more. Even the trees, apparently, were
somewhat different; the bushes weren't the same; and for some reason I
called the boulevard Pushkin instead of Tverskoi.
From habit I looked at my watch, arid my arm froze in mid-air. Even my
jacket was different from the one I'd put on that morning. As a matter of
fact, it wasn't my jacket, nor was the watch mine, and a scar curved out
from beneath the band, yet only about a minute ago no scar had been there at
all. But this was an old scar, healed long ago, the track of a bullet or
shell splinter. I looked down at my feet - even the shoes weren't mine but a
stranger's, with ridiculous buckles on the side.
"What if my appearance has changed, and my age is not the same? What if
I'm not ... me, at all?" came the burning thought. I jumped to my feet and
ran, rather than walked, along the alley toward the theatre.
The theatre stood in the same place, but it was a different one, with
an altered entrance and other billings. I did not find one title I knew on
the list of its repertoire. But in the dark glass doors, unlit from inside,
a familiar face was reflected. It was my face. So far, it was the only thing
in this world that was mine.
I was only now aware that my head ached. I rubbed my temples - it still
ached. I remembered that somewhere near by, on the square I believed, there
should be a chemist's shop. Perhaps it had been spared, if I were lucky. The