ala_ina (ala_ina) wrote,@ 2007-04-24 20:55:00

Начало было здесь, а вот еще один отрывок, жалко концовку придумывать лень
On the day in question, as McMillan was busy searching through folders covered by a thirty year supply of dust, the mime was lazily promenading down the street in the general direction of a Sunday newspaper and a cup of coffee. It was one of those early-spring mornings, with, as the streets were filling up with people rushing off to get an early jump on the day’s tasks. Jack and Jill went up the hill. The waifish barista from the coffee-shop down the block was chatting with the flower-shop owner, swapping the latest of the day’s gossip -- the two of them trying to out-banter each other in that underhanded reference-infused trivia-rich chitchat, accessible only to the town’s baristas, flower-shop owners, dog-walkers and waiters.
Walking slowly down a crowded street at this hour of the day, the mime was forced to eavesdrop on the conversations of passer-bys. He tried his best to block them out, but words were swarming in the air, attacking him from all directions. A couple to his right- A big black bug bit a big black bear; a family on his left - made the big black bear bleed blood; a group of kids up ahead - Betty Botter had some butter. These words, constantly chewed up and regurgitated by others, have been dumbfounding him for as quite a while by now and possibly were even somehow responsible for his choice of an occupation. As far back as he remembered he could never understand why for instance one was supposed to say “hello” before “good-bye”. “Could I thank you get some change?” and “Oh, no thank you, do not please me” made as much of a sense as the other way around. “Goodness” never felt all that pleasant, “darkness” brought to mind ducks, drinks, and various other trinkets. This absence of unity between the predicates and their objects has eventually forced him to take a stand against engaging conversations beyond when it was absolutely unavoidable. In his everyday life he easily got by on two-three non-essential phrases and at parties his verbal contribution rarely went beyond “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” and “Nice to see you again”, -- most of his acquaintances so used to this that they had no problems carrying on the conversation on their own. And yet, despite his seeming disinterest in communicating he nevertheless felt an urge to speak, to feel the words in is mouth, to taste them on the tip of the tongue, to finally find the perfect one. Sometimes he’d wake up in the middle of the night, almost able to touch it, only to have it slip away at the very last moment.