Текст книги "Колонизация"

Автор книги: Алекс Ланг

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 8 страниц)

LIVES OF PAIN

BLIND, DEAF AND ABANDONED

“There are videos too. The Daily Whip came up with a hashtag: #makeitbetter. It went global.

Klaus, Klaus and Hedder were called in to manage the donation fund.”

“Donation fund?”

She turns the pages once more, to the final story.

YOU DID IT!

“As of this morning there is a sum of over seven million pounds waiting to be transferred to your bank account. I’m getting a set of paper cheques made for you to enable your spending. That amount of money could be difficult to carry in cash.”

“I … I don’t know what to …”

She blinks. “You don’t need to say a thing. I’ve just taken a snap of this moment to circulate out on the web. Everyone will want to see it, if that’s okay?”

“Right,” I say. “Right.”

“So have a think about what you want to do with all your money and I’ll enable it. You’ve got at least another week before you can be released from hospital-I’ll come back in a few days once you’ve had a chance to come to terms with it all.”

“Okay.”

“You’re very brave,” she says, abruptly. Then she turns, and leaves. I lower the bed back to a prone position and try to make sense of the world I can’t see.

I shouldn’t make any rash decisions. I could start a charity. Buy a mansion, cover it in tinfoil, take in other sufferers of IEHS. I could become a spokeswoman for my cause. Speak at the United Nations. Rail passionately against the unfairness of the modern age. I have been given an amazing opportunity. It should not be wasted, this chance to do good. I wonder if Marianne has opened a Facebook account for me. I wonder how many friends I have now.

I don’t know what I want.

But I know what I need.

***

I float in the sea.

It’s not a sea of knowledge. It’s not milky-white, and it’s not making a new sense of understanding within me. It’s just a sea, even if it is the Dead one.

It’s so easy to float here, easy to let myself go. There are no voices, no whispers, no expectations or assumptions. There is only me.

For the first time, I’ve made the choice to be alone.

I sort of like it