Ищу аналоги в английской литературе

[fagGoD]

Ищу аналоги книги "Зерцалия" в английской литературе, а еще лучше - строго в британской. Фэнтази, тема зеркал и зазеркалья - вот, что меня интересует. Очень хочется ознакомиться и сравнить творчество разных писателей по этим темам. (Кинга не предлагать!))

@темы: Мнения, Советы, Вопросы

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smth like

[книжный кот]

Посоветуйте, пожалуйста, что-нибудь в духе "Акционерного общества женщин" Елены Котовой: динамичное повествование о женщинах в современном мире. Только не сопли в сахаре, а про нормальных женщин, не без недостатков.)

@темы: Советы, Романы

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Коэльо

[приветливый социопат]

Кто-нибудь читал Коэльо в оригинале? Порекомендуете? Сложно/легко?
Хочу начать с "Алхимика")

@темы: Советы, Вопросы

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[секс на завтрак]

Здравствуйте.
1) Встречал ли кто-нибудь книгу "Pay It Forward" автора Catherine Ryan Hyde, по которой был снят известный фильм "Заплати другому"?
Искала в сети, нашла только вот

тут

books.google.ru/books?id=sJnx5ummoqEC&pg=PA7&so..., и то не полную - предварительный просмотр.
2) Почему эту книгу до сих пор не перевели на русский язык? Особенно после выхода фильма, ставшего таким популярным. Она была переведена на 25 языков, но не на русский. Это ведь не просто так? Проблемы с правами? Или в книге есть что-то такое, из-за чего ее не разрешают публиковать в России?

@темы: Вопросы, Романы

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Книги с заковыристым жаргоном

[Journey-Long]

Доброго времени суток.
Господа, если здесь все еще кто-то обитает - подскажите мне, пожалуйста, книги современных американских авторов, в которых есть интересный жаргон (любой - главное, чтобы был любопытен с переводческой точки зрения). И да, классиков, вроде Сэлинджера, Хэллера и Стейнбека предлагать не нужно, с ними я уже знакома.

@темы: Советы

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Neil Gaiman "Fragile Things"

[tsunaoshy]

Neil Gaiman Fragile Things
От издателя
Let me tell you stories of the months of the year, of ghosts and heartbreak, of dread and desire. Of after-hours drinking and unanswered phones, of good deeds and bad days, of trusting wolves and how to talk to girls.
There are stories within stories, whispered in the quiet of the night, shouted above the roar of the day, and played out between lovers and enemies, strangers and friends. But all, all are fragile things made of just 26 letters arranged and rearranged to form tales and imaginings which will dazzle your senses, haunt your imagination and move you to the very depths of your soul.
Мои впечатления:
Этот сборник рассказов во всей красе показывает насколько умело Гейман работает со словами, завораживает читателей, настоящий мастер!
В предисловии автор расказывает о истории написания каждого рассказа, ведь они все были написаны в разные годы, для отдельных сборников, в подарок, под впечатлением чего-либо. И уже само предисловие мной читалось как отдельный рассказ - очень интересно как создаются новые персонажи, как у автора возникает вдохновение. А вслед за вступлением идет первый рассказ, сразу же сбивающий с ног - это же Шерлок! Или нет? А кто ещё может жить на Бейкер стрит? Только тш-ш-ш! Ведь истории так хрупки, что готовы рассыпаться в неумелых руках, как осенние листья! Может потому, что в следующей истории(пропуская один стих) мы видим Октябрь в окружении 11 братьев и сестер. И сейчас именно он сидит на стуле во главе семьи и готовится рассказать свою историю? Не могу сказать, что рассказы в антологии атмосферные, но как минимум свое собственное настроение есть у большиства из них.
А как вам история про писателя, который хотел писать хорошую, добротную документалистику, а душа рвалась писать фантастику про кредиты, проблемы в браке и сломанную микроволновку? Да-да двоякость повествования прослеживается во многих произведениях автора. Как медаль о двух сторонах. От кого бегут все эти люди? От своих страхов или самих себя? а может они бегут не -от, а к чему-то? К себе или за ней, за ускользающей в дали мечтой?
Здесь есть история написанная благодаря "Матрице" и вдохновленная "Тысячей и одной ночью". Достаточно открыть книгу и каждый найдёт свою историю, ведь во всех из нас есть немного сумасшедшинки. Только не бегите за белым кроликом, его сегодня нет!
Цитаты:
"They say, Here's the truth, and I say, Is that all there is? And they say, Kind of. Pretty much. As far as we know." (с)
"The last twenty minutes have been the best years of my life."(с)

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[твоя сладкая девочка.]

Подскажите пожалуйста книги, где главный герой - фотограф

@темы: Советы, Вопросы

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Доброго времени суток!

[{Helga}]

Листая каталог, наткнулась на такое молодое сообщество. Идея Буквоежки - замечательная.)))
Сама прочитала пару книг, но не собираюсь останавливаться на достигнутом.))

@темы: Новые лица

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[Selenite]

Приглашаю всех желающих, которые занимались или хотели попробовать свои силы в переводах романов с английского языка, а так же в переводах манг c английского и японского.
А так же корректоров и бет для сравнения и проверки уже готовых переводов.
Жанры разные от фентази до исторического.
Для кого-то, это может, будет расширением интересов и улучшением знаний языка, а так же способом разнообразить свою работу и конечно практикой.Проект бесплатный
Так же на сайте сможете прочесть уже готовые переводы книг и манг))
Ссылка на сайт: worldselena.ucoz.org/
Связь: ICQ: 388162365; Mail: [email protected] или U-mail

@темы: Приключения, Фантастика, Рассказы, Вопросы, Романы

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random story of the week #1

[BukvoEZka]

O. Henry

The Day Resurgent

I can see the artist bite the end of his pencil and frown when it comes to drawing his Easter picture; for his legitimate pictorial conceptions of figures pertinent to the festival are but four in number.
First comes Easter, pagan goddess of spring. Here his fancy may have free play. A beautiful maiden with decorative hair and the proper number of toes will fill the bill. Miss Clarice St. Vavasour, the well-known model, will pose for it in the "Lethergogallagher," or whatever it was that Trilby called it.
Second - the melancholy lady with upturned eyes in a framework of lilies. This is magazine-covery, but reliable.
Third - Miss Manhattan in the Fifth Avenue Easter Sunday parade.
Fourth - Maggie Murphy with a new red feather in her old straw hat, happy and self-conscious, in the Grand Street turnout.
Of course, the rabbits do not count. Nor the Easter eggs, since the higher criticism has hard-boiled them.
The limited field of its pictorial possibilities proves that Easter, of all our festival days, is the most vague and shifting in our conception. It belongs to all religions, although the pagans invented it. Going back still further to the first spring, we can see Eve choosing with pride a new green leaf from the tree ficus carica.
Now, the object of this critical and learned preamble is to set forth the theorem that Easter is neither a date, a season, a festival, a holiday nor an occasion. What it is you shall find out if you follow in the footsteps of Danny McCree.
Easter Sunday dawned as it should, bright and early, in its place on the calendar between Saturday and Monday. At 5:24 the sun rose, and at 10:30 Danny followed its example. He went into the kitchen and washed his face at the sink. His mother was frying bacon. She looked at his hard, smooth, knowing countenance as he juggled with the round cake of soap, and thought of his father when she first saw him stopping a hot grounder between second and third twenty-two years before on a vacant lot in Harlem, where the La Paloma apartment house now stands. In the front room of the flat Danny's father sat by an open window smoking his pipe, with his dishevelled gray hair tossed about by the breeze. He still clung to his pipe, although his sight had been taken from him two years before by a precocious blast of giant powder that went off without permission. Very few blind men care for smoking, for the reason that they cannot see the smoke. Now, could you enjoy having the news read to you from an evening newspaper unless you could see the colors of the headlines?

< 2 >

"'Tis Easter Day," said Mrs. McCree.
"Scramble mine," said Danny.
After breakfast he dressed himself in the Sabbath morning costume of the Canal Street importing house dray chauffeur - frock coat, striped trousers, patent leathers, gilded trace chain across front of vest, and wing collar, rolled-brim derby and butterfly bow from Schonstein's (between Fourteenth Street and Tony's fruit stand) Saturday night sale.
"You'll be goin' out this day, of course, Danny," said old man McCree, a little wistfully. "'Tis a kind of holiday, they say. Well, it's fine spring weather. I can feel it in the air."
"Why should I not be going out?" demanded Danny in his grumpiest chest tones. "Should I stay in? Am I as good as a horse? One day of rest my team has a week. Who earns the money for the rent and the breakfast you've just eat, I'd like to know? Answer me that!"
"All right, lad," said the old man. "I'm not complainin'. While me two eyes was good there was nothin' better to my mind than a Sunday out. There's a smell of turf and burnin' brush comin' in the windy. I have me tobaccy. A good fine day and rist to ye, lad. Times I wish your mother had larned to read, so I might hear the rest about the hippopotamus - but let that be."
"Now, what is this foolishness he talks of hippopotamuses?" asked Danny of his mother, as he passed through the kitchen. "Have you been taking him to the Zoo? And for what?"
"I have not," said Mrs. McCree. "He sets by the windy all day. 'Tis little recreation a blind man among the poor gets at all. I'm thinkin' they wander in their minds at times. One day he talks of grease without stoppin' for the most of an hour. I looks to see if there's lard burnin' in the fryin' pan. There is not. He says I do not understand. 'Tis weary days, Sundays, and holidays and all, for a blind man, Danny. There was no better nor stronger than him when he had his two eyes. 'Tis a fine day, son. Injoy yeself ag'inst the morning. There will be cold supper at six."
"Have you heard any talk of a hippopotamus?" asked Danny of Mike, the janitor, as he went out the door downstairs.

< 3 >

"I have not," said Mike, pulling his shirtsleeves higher. "But 'tis the only subject in the animal, natural and illegal lists of outrages that I've not been compained to about these two days. See the landlord. Or else move out if ye like. Have ye hippopotamuses in the lease? No, then?"
"It was the old man who spoke of it," said Danny. "Likely there's nothing in it."
Danny walked up the street to the Avenue and then struck northward into the heart of the district where Easter - modern Easter, in new, bright raiment - leads the pascal march. Out of towering brown churches came the blithe music of anthems from the choirs. The broad sidewalks were moving parterres of living flowers - so it seemed when your eye looked upon the Easter girl.
Gentlemen, frock-coated, silk-hatted, gardeniaed, sustained the background of the tradition. Children carried lilies in their hands. The windows of the brownstone mansions were packed with the most opulent creations of flora, the sister of the Lady of the Lilies.
Around a corner, white-gloved, pink-gilled and tightly buttoned, walked Corrigan, the cop, shield to the curb. Danny knew him.
"Why, Corrigan," he asked, "is Easter? I know it comes the first you're full after the moon rises on the seventeenth of March - but why? Is it a proper and religious ceremony, or does the Governor appoint it out of politics?"
"'Tis an annual celebration," said Corrigan, with the judicial air of the Third Deputy Police Commissioner, "peculiar to New York. It extends up to Harlem. Sometimes they has the reserves out at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. In my opinion 'tis not political."
"Thanks," said Danny. "And say - did you ever hear a man complain of hippopotamuses? When not specially in drink, I mean."
"Nothing larger than sea turtles," said Corrigan, reflecting, "and there was wood alcohol in that."
Danny wandered. The double, heavy incumbency of enjoying simultaneously a Sunday and a festival day was his.
The sorrows of the hand-toiler fit him easily. They are worn so often that they hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-made garments. That is why well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in the griefs of the common people their most striking models. But when the Philistine would disport himself, the grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set his jaw hard at Easter, and took his pleasure sadly.

< 4 >

The family entrance of Dugan's cafe was feasible; so Danny yielded to the vernal season as far as a glass of bock. Seated in a dark, linoleumed, humid back room, his heart and mind still groped after the mysterious meaning of the springtime jubilee.
"Say, Tim," he said to the waiter, "why do they have Easter?"
"Skiddoo!" said Tim, closing a sophisticated eye. "Is that a new one? All right. Tony Pastor's for you last night, I guess. I give it up. What's the answer - two apples or a yard and a half?"
From Dugan's Danny turned back eastward. The April sun seemed to stir in him a vague feeling that he could not construe. He made a wrong diagnosis and decided that it was Katy Conlon.
A block from her house on Avenue A he met her going to church. They pumped hands on the corner.
"Gee! but you look dumpish and dressed up," said Katy. "What's wrong? Come away with me to church and be cheerful."
"What's doing at church?" asked Danny.
"Why, it's Easter Sunday. Silly! I waited till after eleven expectin' you might come around to go."
"What does this Easter stand for, Katy," asked Danny gloomily. "Nobody seems to know."
"Nobody as blind as you," said Katy with spirit. "You haven't even looked at my new hat. And skirt. Why, it's when all the girls put on new spring clothes. Silly! Are you coming to church with me?"
"I will," said Danny. "If this Easter is pulled off there, they ought to be able to give some excuse for it. Not that the hat ain't a beauty. The green roses are great."
At church the preacher did some expounding with no pounding. He spoke rapidly, for he was in a hurry to get home to his early Sabbath dinner; but he knew his business. There was one word that controlled his theme - resurrection. Not a new creation; but a new life arising out of the old. The congregation had heard it often before. But there was a wonderful hat, a combination of sweet peas and lavender, in the sixth pew from the pulpit. It attracted much attention.
After church Danny lingered on a corner while Katy waited, with pique in her sky-blue eyes.
"Are you coming along to the house?" she asked. "But don't mind me. I'll get there all right. You seem to be studyin' a lot about something. All right. Will I see you at any time specially, Mr. McCree?"

< 5 >

"I'll be around Wednesday night as usual," said Danny, turning and crossing the street.
Katy walked away with the green roses dangling indignantly. Danny stopped two blocks away. He stood still with his hands in his pockets, at the curb on the corner. His face was that of a graven image. Deep in his soul something stirred so small, so fine, so keen and leavening that his hard fibres did not recognize it. It was something more tender than the April day, more subtle than the call of the senses, purer and deeper-rooted than the love of woman - for had he not turned away from green roses and eyes that had kept him chained for a year? And Danny did not know what it was. The preacher, who was in a hurry to go to his dinner, had told him, but Danny had had no libretto with which to follow the drowsy intonation. But the preacher spoke the truth.
Suddenly Danny slapped his leg and gave forth a hoarse yell of delight.
"Hippopotamus!" he shouted to an elevated road pillar. "Well, how is that for a bum guess? Why, blast my skylights! I know what he was driving at now.
"Hippopotamus! Wouldn't that send you to the Bronx! It's been a year since he heard it; and he didn't miss it so very far. We quit at 469 B. C., and this comes next. Well, a wooden man wouldn't have guessed what he was trying to get out of him."
Danny caught a crosstown car and went up to the rear flat that his labor supported.
Old man McCree was still sitting by the window. His extinct pipe lay on the sill.
"Will that be you, lad?" he asked.
Danny flared into the rage of a strong man who is surprised at the outset of committing a good deed.
"Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?" he snapped, viciously. "Have I no right to come in?"
"Ye're a faithful lad," said old man McCree, with a sigh. "Is it evening yet?"
Danny reached up on a shelf and took down a thick book labeled in gilt letters, "The History of Greece." Dust was on it half an inch thick. He laid it on the table and found a place in it marked by a strip of paper. And then he gave a short roar at the top of his voice, and said:

< 6 >

"Was it the hippopotamus you wanted to be read to about then?"
"Did I hear ye open the book?" said old man McCree. "Many and weary be the months since my lad has read it to me. I dinno; but I took a great likings to them Greeks. Ye left off at a place. 'Tis a fine day outside, lad. Be out and take rest from your work. I have gotten used to me chair by the windy and me pipe."
"Pel-Peloponnesus was the place where we left off, and not hippopotamus," said Danny. "The war began there. It kept something doing for thirty years. The headlines says that a guy named Philip of Macedon, in 338 B. C., got to be boss of Greece by getting the decision at the battle of Cher-Cheronaea. I'll read it."
With his hand to his ear, rapt in the Peloponnesian War, old man McCree sat for an hour, listening.
Then he got up and felt his way to the door of the kitchen. Mrs. McCree was slicing cold meat. She looked up. Tears were running from old man McCree's eyes.
"Do you hear our lad readin' to me?" he said. "There is none finer in the land. My two eyes have come back to me again."
After supper he said to Danny: "'Tis a happy day, this Easter. And now ye will be off to see Katy in the evening. Well enough."
"Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?" said Danny, angrily. "Have I no right to stay in it? After supper there is yet to come the reading of the battle of Corinth, 146 B. C., when the kingdom, as they say, became an in-integral portion of the Roman Empire. Am I nothing in this house?"

@темы: Рассказы

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501 must read books

[BukvoEZka]

501 одна книга которую стоит прочитать. Мне недавно в руки попал список этих самых книг, вот теперь думаю стоит ли сюда набрать и вывесить? Голосуйте:

Вопрос: Хотите узнать что это за книги?

1. Да, конечно набери		48	(96%)
2. Нет, не трать свое время печатать		2	(4%)
Всего:		50

@темы: Мнения

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Аудиокниги - Бесплатно...

[BukvoEZka]

Кого-то интересует где можно бесплатно скачать аудиокниги? Совсем недавно нашла замечательный сайт: librivox.com классика и книги из общественного доступа.
Так же если кого-то интересует, можно принять участие в записи проекта....

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[Selenite]

Приглашаю к сотрудничеству людей,которые занимались или хотели бы попробовать свои силы в переводах манг и романов. Язык (англ.,японск и др.)
Проект бесплатный.
Для кого-то, это может будет расширением интересов и улучшением знаний языка,а так же практикой.
Любые вопросы по этому поводу можно писать на U-mail или на mail [email protected]
Ссылка на сайт: worldselena.ucoz.org/
C уважением,Selena.

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ищу книгу txt aliens - alan dean foster

[кракозябрик]

ищу скачать книгу .txt aliens - alan dean foster ("чужие" алан дин фостер) на английском. спасибо

@темы: Фантастика

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москва.ищу книги

[Miazy]

москва,ищу книги на АНГЛИЙСКОМ языке..

Jane Fallon Got You Back
Madeleine Wickham Cocktails for Three
Varley Jane Elizabeth Truth about love

а также интересуют еще какие-ниб.книги этих авторов!
или подобная современная иностр. художеств.литература...

пишите на umail

@темы: Книга по фильму, Рассказы, Романы

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Аудиокниги на английском

[Raydiculous]

Здравствуйте. Подскажите, пожалуйста, книги, которые бы легко прослушивались, легко воспринимались на слух человеком с низким знанием английского.... (Это не я))
Возможно, детские сказки или что-нибудь в этом роде. Чтобы предложения были простейшие, без сложных запутанных оборотов and all...
спасибо заранее.

@темы: Советы

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продам книжки на английском. Все по 200р. Москва

[deadreckoner]

Irvine Welsh - The Bedroom Secrets Of The Master Chefs
Irvine Welsh - If You Liked School You'll Love Work
Douglas Coupland - Hey Nostradamus!
Charles Dickens - Bleak House


пишите сюда или на у-мыло

@музыка: New Order

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Где кто берет книги?

[BukvoEZka]

Приятно видеть что наши ряды начинают пополняться... Так что всем постоянным читателям "Добро Пожаловать!"
Вырисовывается картина, что в последние годы число читающих невероятно возрасло, и остается только надеяться что книги на английском стали более доступными чем пару лет назад. И отсюда вопрос:

Вопрос: Где вы берете книги?

1. скачиваю в интернете		19	(67.86%)
2. покупаю в специализированном магазине (например при инязе университета)		3	(10.71%)
3. покупаю через зарубежные интернет-магазины (ну или Е-Бай, или Амазон)		1	(3.57%)
4. Достают друзья		1	(3.57%)
5. Через популярный в последнее время Буккроссинг		0	(0%)
6. А что их искать где-то? Вон их полная полка в моем книжном стоит...		3	(10.71%)
7. В подвалах с надписью "Second Hand одежда из Британии/США/Австралии" (а что тут такого... можно три книги за червонец купить...)		1	(3.57%)
Всего:		28

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[BukvoEZka]

Вот и первая история для разминки, чтобы как-то начать действие группы...
Кто осилит до конца, поделитесь впечатлениями...

ON THE SIDEWALK BLEEDING by Evan Hunter

The boy lay on the sidewalk bleeding in the rain. He was sixteen years old, and he wore a bright purple jacket, and the lettering across the back of the jacket read THE ROYALS. The boy's name was Andy and the name was delicately scripted in black thread on the front of the jacket, just over the heart. ANDY..

He had been stabbed ten minutes ago. The knife entered just below his rib cage and had been drawn across his body violently, tearing a wide gap in his flesh. He lay on the sidewalk with the March rain drilling his jacket and drilling his body and washing away the blood that poured from his open wound. He had known excruciating pain when the knife had torn across his body, and then sudden comparative relief when the blade was pulled away. He had heard the voice saying, 'That's for you Royal! " and then the sound of footsteps hurrying into the rain, and then he had fallen to the sidewalk, clutching his stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood.

He tried to yell for help, but he had no voice. He did not know why his voice had deserted him, or why there was an open hole in his body from which his life ran readily, steadily, or why the rain had become so suddenly fierce. It was 11:13 p.m. but he did not know the time.

There was another thing he did not know.

He did not know he was dying. He lay on the sidewalk, bleeding, and he thought only: That was a fierce rumble. They got me good that time, but he did not know he was dying. He would have been frightened had he known. In his ignorance he lay bleeding and wishing he could cry out for help, but there was no voice in his throat. There was only the bubbling of blood from between his lips whenever he opened his mouth to speak. He lay in his pain, waiting, waiting for someone to find him.

He could hear the sound of automobile tires hushed on the rain swept streets, far away at the other end of the long alley. He lay with his face pressed to the sidewalk, and he could see the splash of neon far away at the other end of the alley, tinting the pavement red and green, slickly brilliant in the rain.

He wondered if Laura would be angry. He had left the jump to get a package of cigarettes. He had told her he would be back in a few minutes, and then he had gone downstairs and found the candy store closed. He knew that Alfredo's on the next block would be open. He had started through the alley, and that was when he had been ambushed.

He could hear the faint sound of music now, coming from a long, long way off. He wondered if Laura was dancing, wondered if she had missed him yet. Maybe she thought he wasn't coming back. Maybe she thought he'd cut out for good. Maybe she had already left the jump and gone home. He thought of her face, the brown eyes and the jet-black hair, and thinking of her he forgot his pain a little, forgot that blood was rushing from his body.

Someday he would marry Laura. Someday he would marry her, and they would have a lot of kids, and then they would get out of the neighborhood. They would move to a clean project in the Bronx, or maybe they would move to Staten Island. When they were married, when they had kids.

He heard footsteps at the other end of the alley, and he lifted his cheek from the sidewalk and looked into the darkness and tried to cry out, but again there was only a soft hissing bubble of blood on his mouth.

The man came down the alley. He had not seen Andy yet. He walked, and then stopped to lean against the brick of the building, and then walked again. He saw Andy then and came toward him, and he stood over him for a long time, the minutes ticking, ticking, watching him and not speaking.

Then he said, "What's the matter, buddy'?"

Andy could not speak, and he could barely move. He lifted his face slightly and looked up at the man, and in the rain swept alley he smelled the sickening odor of alcohol. The man was drunk.

The man was smiling.

"Did you fall down, buddy?" he asked. "You must be as drunk as I am." He squatted alongside Andy.

'You gonna catch cold there," he said. "What's the matter? You like layin' in the wet?"

Andy could not answer. The rain spattered around them.

You like a drink?"

Andy shook his head.

"I gotta bottle. Here," the man said. He pulled a pint bottle from his inside jacket pocket. Andy tried to move, but pain wrenched him back flat against the sidewalk.

Take it," the man said. He kept watching Andy. "Take it." When Andy did not move, he said, "Nev' mind, I'll have one m'self." He tilted the bottle to his lips, and then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "You too young to be drinkin' anyway. Should be 'shamed of yourself, drunk and layin 'in a alley, all wet. Shame on you. I gotta good mind to call a cop."

Andy nodded. Yes, he tried to say. Yes, call a cop. Please call one.

"Oh, you don' like that, huh?" the drunk said. "You don' wanna cop to fin' you all drunk an' wet in an alley, huh: Okay, buddy. This time you get off easy." He got to his feet. "This time you get off easy," he said again. He waved broadly at Andy, and then almost lost his footing. "S'long, buddy," he said.

Wait, Andy thought. Wait, please, I'm bleeding.

"S'long," the drunk said again, "I see you around," and the he staggered off up the alley.

Andy lay and thought: Laura, Laura. Are you dancing:?

The couple came into the alley suddenly. They ran into the alley together, running from the rain, the boy holding the girl's elbow, the girl spreading a newspaper over her head to protect her hair. Andy watched them run into the alley laughing, and then duck into the doorway not ten feet from him.

"Man, what rain!" the boy said. 'You could drown out there."

"I have to get home," the girl said. "It's late, Freddie. I have to get home."

"We got time," Freddie said. 'Your people won't raise a fuss if you're a little late. Not with this with kind of weather."

"It's dark," the girl said, and she giggled.

'Yeah," the boy answered, his voice very low.

"Freddie . . . . ?

"Um?"

"You're ... standing very close to me."

"Um."

There was a long silence. Then the girl said, "Oh," only that single word, and Andy knew she had been kissed , and he suddenly hungered for Laura's mouth. It was then that he wondered if he would ever kiss Laura again. It was then that he wondered if he was dying.

No, he thought, I can't be dying, not from a little street rumble, not from just being cut. Guys get cut all the time in rumbles. I can't be dying. No, that's stupid. That don't make any sense at all.

"You shouldn't," the girl said.

"Why not?"

"Do you like it?"

"Yes."

"So?"

"I don't know."

"I love you, Angela," the boy said.

"I love you, too, Freddie," the girl said, and Andy listened and thought: I love you, Laura. Laura, I think maybe I'm dying. Laura, this is stupid but I think maybe I'm dying. Laura, I think I'm dying

He tried to speak. He tried to move. He tried to crawl toward the doorway. He tried to make a noise, a sound, and a grunt came, a low animal grunt of pain.

"What was that?" the girl said, suddenly alarmed, breaking away from the boy.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Go look, Freddie."

"No. Wait."

Andy moved his lips again. Again the sound came from him.

Freddie!"

"What?"

"I'm scared."

"I'll go see," the boy said.

He stepped into the alley. He walked over to where Andy lay on the ground. He stood over him, watching him.

"You all right?" he asked.

"What is it?" Angela said from the doorway.

"Somebody's hurt," Freddie said.

"Let's get out of here," Angela said.

"No. Wait a minute." He knelt down beside Andy. "You cut?" he asked.

Andy nodded. The boy kept looking at him. He saw the lettering on the jacket then. THE ROYALS. He turned to Angela.

"He's a Royal," he said.

"Let's what. . . .what . . . do you want to do, Freddie?"

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to get mixed up in this. He's a Royal. We help him, and the Guardians'll be down on our necks. I don't want to get mixed up in this, Angela."

"Is he . . . is he hurt bad?"

"Yeah, it looks that way."

"What shall we do?"

"I don't know."

"We can't leave him here in the rain," Angela hesitated. "Can we?"

"If we get a cop, the Guardians'll find out who," Freddie said. "I don't know, Angela. I don't know."

Angela hesitated a long time before answering. Then she said, "I want to go home, Freddie. My people will begin to worry."

"Yeah," Freddie said. He looked at Andy again. "You all right?" he asked. Andy lifted his face from the sidewalk, and his eyes said: Please, please help me, and maybe Freddie read what his eyes were saying, and maybe he didn't.

Behind him, Angela said, "Freddie, let's get out of here! Please!" Freddie stood up. He looked at Andy again, and then mumbled, "I'm sorry." He took Angela's arm and together they ran towards the neon splash at the other end of the alley.

Why, they're afraid of the Guardians, Andy thought in amazement. By why should they be? I wasn't afraid of the Guardians. I never turkeyed out of a rumble with the Guardians. I got heart. But I'm bleeding.

The rain was soothing somehow. It was a cold rain, but his body was hot all over, and the rain helped cool him. He had always liked rain. He could remember sitting in Laura's house one time, the rain running down the windows, and just looking out over the street, watching the people running from the rain. That was when he'd first joined the Royals.

He could remember how happy he was when the Royals had taken him. The Royals and the Guardians, two of the biggest. He was a Royal. There had been meaning to the title.

Now, in the alley, with the cold rain washing his hot body, he wondered about the meaning. If he died, he was Andy. He was not a Royal. He was simply Andy, and he was dead. And he wondered suddenly if the Guardians who had ambushed him and knifed him had ever once realized he was Andy? Had they known that he was Andy or had they simply known that he was Royal wearing a purple silk jacket? Had they stabbed him, Andy, or had they only stabbed the jacket and the title and what good was the title if you were dying?

I'm Andy, he screamed wordlessly, I'm Andy.

An old lady stopped at the other end of the alley. The garbage cans were stacked there, beating noisily in the rain. The old lady carried an umbrella with broken ribs, carried it like a queen. She stepped into the mouth of the alley, shopping bag over one arm. She lifted the lids of the garbage cans. She did not hear Andy grunt because she was a little deaf and because the rain was beating on the cans. She collected her string and her newspapers, and an old hat with a feather on it from one of the garbage cans, and a broken footstool from another of the cans. And then she replaced the lids and lifted her umbrella high and walked out of the alley mouth. She had worked quickly and soundlessly, and now she was gone.

The alley looked very long now. He could see people passing at the other end of it, and he wondered who the people were, and he wondered if he would ever get to know them, wondered who it was of the Guardians who had stabbed him, who had plunged the knife into his body.

"That's for you, Royal!" the voice had said. "That's for you, Royal!" Even in his pain, there had been some sort of pride in knowing he was a Royal. Now there was no pride at all. With the rain beginning to chill him, with the blood pouring steadily between his fingers, he knew only a sort of dizziness. He could only think: I want to be Andy.

It was not very much to ask of the world.

He watched the world passing at the other end of the alley. The world didn't know he was Andy. The world didn't know he was alive. He wanted to say, "Hey, I'm alive! Hey, look at me! I'm alive! Don't you know I'm alive? Don't you know I exist?"

He felt weak and very tired. He felt alone, and wet and feverish and chilled. He knew he was going to die now. That made him suddenly sad. He was filled with sadness that his life would be over at sixteen. He felt all at once as if he had never done anything, never seen anything, never been anywhere. There were so many things to do. He wondered why he'd never thought of them before, wondered why the rumbles and the jumps and the purple jackets had always seemed so important to him before. Now they seemed like such small things in a world he was missing, a world that was rushing past at the other end of the alley.

I don't want to die, he thought. I haven't lived yet. It seemed very important to him that he take off the purple jacket. He was very close to dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, "Oh, it's a Royal." With great effort, he rolled over onto his back. He felt the pain tearing at his stomach when he moved. If he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket. The jacket had only one meaning now, and that was a very simple meaning.

If he had not been wearing the jacket, he wouldn't have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife hated only the purple jacket. The jacket was as stupid meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life.

He lay struggling with the shiny wet jacket. His arms were heavy. Pain ripped fire across his body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm was free and then the other. He rolled away from the jacket and lay quite still, breathing heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sounds of the rain and thinking: Rain is sweet, I'm Andy.

She found him in the doorway a minute past midnight. She left the dance to look for him, and when she found him, she knelt beside him and said, "Andy, it's me, Laura."

He did not answer her. She backed away from him, tears springing into her eyes, and then she ran from the alley. She did not stop running until she found a cop.

And now, standing with the cop, she looked down at him. The cop rose and said, "He's dead." All the crying was out of her now. She stood in the rain and said nothing, looking at the purple jacket that rested a foot away from his body.

The cop picked up the jacket and turned it over in his hands.

"A Royal, huh?" he said.

She looked at the cop and, very quietly, she said, "His name is Andy."

The cop slung the jacket over his arm. He took out his black pad, and he flipped it open to a blank page.

"A Royal, " he said. Then he began writing.


The End

@темы: Рассказы

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Опрос =)

[BukvoEZka]

Все равно же здесь кто-то ходит, так если не лень понажимайте на кнопочку =) Только честно отвечайте, пожалуйста

Вопрос: Сколько книг в своей жизни вы прочитали на английском?

1. Целую кучу, всех и не вспомнить....		6	(20.69%)
2. Больше 5		7	(24.14%)
3. Около 5-4		1	(3.45%)
4. 4-3		2	(6.9%)
5. Пару		6	(20.69%)
6. Одну		1	(3.45%)
7. Не могу справиться с первой		4	(13.79%)
8. Ни одной....		2	(6.9%)
Всего:		29