JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 46 из 425There were two or three seconds of silence,and then a jay replied. Another two or three seconds went by, and then a crow added his two cents’ worth. A woodpecker began to hammer for grubs.
A chipmunk bumbled through some underbrush on my left. A minute after I had stood up, the woods were fully alive with little noises again; it was back to business as usual, and I continued with my own. I never forgot that unexpected boom, though, or the deathly silence which followed it. I thought of that June day often in the wake of the nightmare, and there was nothing so remarkable in that. Things had changed, somehow, or could change… but first comes silence while we assure ourselves that we are still unhurt and that the danger—if there was danger—is gone.
Derry was shut down for most of the following week, anyway. Ice and high winds caused a great deal of damage during the storm, and a sudden twenty-degree plunge in the temperature afterward made the digging out hard and the cleanup slow. Added to that, the atmosphere after a March storm is always dour and pessimistic; we get them up this way every year (and two or three in April for good measure, if we’re not lucky), but we never seem to expect them. Every time we get clouted, we take it personally.
On a day toward the end of that week, the weather finally started to break. I took advantage, going out for a cup of coffee and a mid-morning pastry at the little restaurant three doors down from the Rite Aid where Johanna did her last errand. I was sipping and chewing and working the newspaper crossword when someone asked, “Could I share your booth, Mr. Noonan? It’s pretty crowded in here today.”
I looked up and saw an old man that I knew but couldn’t quite place.
“Ralph Roberts,” he said. “I volunteer down at the Red Cross. Me and my wife, Lois.”
“Oh, okay, sure,” I said. I give blood at the Red Cross every six weeks or so. Ralph Roberts was one of the old parties who passed out juice and cookies afterward, telling you not to get up or make any sudden movements if you felt woozy. “Please, sit down.” He looked at my paper, folded open to the crossword and lying in a patch of sun, as he slid into the booth. “Don’t you find that doing the crossword in the Derry News is sort of like striking out the pitcher in a baseball game?” he asked. I laughed and nodded. “I do it for the same reason folks climb Mount Everest, Mr. Roberts… because it’s there. Only with the News crossword, no one ever falls off.”
“Call me Ralph. Please.”
“Okay. And I’m Mike.”
“Good.
A chipmunk bumbled through some underbrush on my left. A minute after I had stood up, the woods were fully alive with little noises again; it was back to business as usual, and I continued with my own. I never forgot that unexpected boom, though, or the deathly silence which followed it. I thought of that June day often in the wake of the nightmare, and there was nothing so remarkable in that. Things had changed, somehow, or could change… but first comes silence while we assure ourselves that we are still unhurt and that the danger—if there was danger—is gone.
Derry was shut down for most of the following week, anyway. Ice and high winds caused a great deal of damage during the storm, and a sudden twenty-degree plunge in the temperature afterward made the digging out hard and the cleanup slow. Added to that, the atmosphere after a March storm is always dour and pessimistic; we get them up this way every year (and two or three in April for good measure, if we’re not lucky), but we never seem to expect them. Every time we get clouted, we take it personally.
On a day toward the end of that week, the weather finally started to break. I took advantage, going out for a cup of coffee and a mid-morning pastry at the little restaurant three doors down from the Rite Aid where Johanna did her last errand. I was sipping and chewing and working the newspaper crossword when someone asked, “Could I share your booth, Mr. Noonan? It’s pretty crowded in here today.”
I looked up and saw an old man that I knew but couldn’t quite place.
“Ralph Roberts,” he said. “I volunteer down at the Red Cross. Me and my wife, Lois.”
“Oh, okay, sure,” I said. I give blood at the Red Cross every six weeks or so. Ralph Roberts was one of the old parties who passed out juice and cookies afterward, telling you not to get up or make any sudden movements if you felt woozy. “Please, sit down.” He looked at my paper, folded open to the crossword and lying in a patch of sun, as he slid into the booth. “Don’t you find that doing the crossword in the Derry News is sort of like striking out the pitcher in a baseball game?” he asked. I laughed and nodded. “I do it for the same reason folks climb Mount Everest, Mr. Roberts… because it’s there. Only with the News crossword, no one ever falls off.”
“Call me Ralph. Please.”
“Okay. And I’m Mike.”
“Good.