Motorman

Начало книги

Moldenke would remain.

As a child they kept him in a crumbling house, a building with structural moans, whose eaves cracked in summer heat and gathered winter ice.

At that point Moldenke's chest held two lungs and a single heart.

He experienced a shortened boyhood, a small degree of youth and carelessness.

Most phenomena puzzled him and sent him on aimless walks among the leafless ether trees. He would fix on his goggles, his gauze pad, and study the flying birds, see them casting frightened earthward glances.

He would press his face against the pane of his bedroom lookout as spring fell and wait for the greenbird. The greenbird would circle a dying ether, peck spirals on its dry trunk. Moldenke would fold himself into a chair and watch the greenbird work, writing down its habits, behaviors, and essences:

Rapid pecking followed by pauses. Long, agile tongue coated with a jellylike substance, good for rooting in tree trunks for larvae and etcetera. When the tongue is retracted it apparently wraps about the brain.

Читать дальше →