Текст книги "Nevermore"

Автор книги: Henry Lion Oldie

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Henry Lion Oldie
Nevermore

* * *

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

«Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,» I said, "art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore —

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"

Quoth the Raven «Nevermore.»

E. A. Poe, «The Raven».

...Dead gray waves were running over the dead molten sand and with metronome precision rolling back to the horizon where the foaming sea medley touched upon the dull sky torn up with gaping atmospheric holes and whirlwind wells heavy with tornadoes. The sky was unwillingly spitting small, scarcely luminous splashes into the filthy spittoon of the Earth, the soil lightly smoking in the places of direct hits and cooling down with caked crust – it had been smoking for a few years, though. The wind was roaming along the coast, the wind was whistling in the dry skeletons of a few remaining buildings, the wind was stirring the dusty tulle of ashes, showing the bones buried under it. The sky was gazing at the remains indifferently. It didn't care...

In the first days corpses were so numerous that crows crazy with joy indulged in luxurious feasts. Due to radiation the air was almost sterile, and the birds' squash dragged out for weeks, then – for months... Decay progressed slowly, and when many of the flock grew bald and died in the general hubbub and wing-flapping – their bodies would remain unpecked. Winged brothers, ones of better luck – they preferred human flesh.

Little by little crows noticed where the invisible death was lurking and kept away from those places. By and by food was growing scarce, and it was getting harder to find bodies untouched by decay or beaks; to catch a rat was out of the question. In the first days after the End, in spite of all prognoses, rats had far less luck than crows. Gloomy birds were digging in the ruins, flying from one spot to another, raking light rustling ashes; and no one wished to realize that the time of plenty had lapsed into non-existence...

...The crow was sitting on the shore, waiting. The sea from time to time brought something edible to the beach: a crushed starfish, a crab boiled in its shell, a violet jellyfish... The crow was hungry and angrily squinting its blood-red eye at the dirty surf foam. Nothing. Bad era. Especially bad after the recent abundance slightly touched by fire... The crow gave out a hoarse croak, and, for an instant, in the grinding sound of its throat there came a forgotten word of a forever-gone race. An alien race. Tasty and abundant. And never aga

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