JК
Something Happened :: Хеллер Джозеф
Страница: 6 из 398He was no longer among the living. Mr. ________________ was no longer listed as a patient, and I had to go to his funeral three days later.
I hate funerals — I hate funerals passionately because there is always something morbid about them — and I do my best to avoid going to any (especially my own, ha, ha). At funerals I do have to attend, I try not to speak to anyone; I merely press palms and look overcome. Occasionally, I mumble something inaudible, and I always lower my eyes, the way I see people do in movies. I don't trust myself to do more. Since I don't know what to say when somebody dies, I'm afraid that anything I do say will be wrong. I really don't trust myself anymore in any tight situation whose outcome I can't control or predict. I'm not even happy changing a fuse or an electric light bulb.
Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur. I dislike anything unexpected. If furniture is rearranged even slightly (even in my office) without my prior knowledge it is like receiving a blow in the face or a stab in the back. I dislike everything sudden. I am angered and hurt by surprises of every sort; even those surprises that are organized to bring me pleasure always end with a leaden aftertaste of sorrow and self-pity, a sensation that I have been planned against and exploited for somebody else's delight, that a secret has been kept from me, that a conspiracy has succeeded from which I was excluded. (I am not the easiest person to live with.) I loathe conflict (with everyone but the members of my household). There are many small, day-to-day conflicts with which I am simply unable to cope any longer without great agony and humiliation: a disagreement with a repairman who is cheating me out of service or a small amount of money, or a conversation of complaint with one of those blankly elusive people who work in the business offices of telephone companies. (I would sooner let myself be cheated.) Or the time the mice got into the apartment before I became a minor executive with my company and began earning enough money to move out of the city into my own home in Connecticut (which I hate).
I didn't know what to do about those mice. I never saw them. Only the cleaning woman did, or said she did, and one time my wife thought she did, and one time my wife's mother was almost sure she did. After a while the mice just disappeared. They went away. They stopped coming out. I'm not even sure they were really there.
I hate funerals — I hate funerals passionately because there is always something morbid about them — and I do my best to avoid going to any (especially my own, ha, ha). At funerals I do have to attend, I try not to speak to anyone; I merely press palms and look overcome. Occasionally, I mumble something inaudible, and I always lower my eyes, the way I see people do in movies. I don't trust myself to do more. Since I don't know what to say when somebody dies, I'm afraid that anything I do say will be wrong. I really don't trust myself anymore in any tight situation whose outcome I can't control or predict. I'm not even happy changing a fuse or an electric light bulb.
Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur. I dislike anything unexpected. If furniture is rearranged even slightly (even in my office) without my prior knowledge it is like receiving a blow in the face or a stab in the back. I dislike everything sudden. I am angered and hurt by surprises of every sort; even those surprises that are organized to bring me pleasure always end with a leaden aftertaste of sorrow and self-pity, a sensation that I have been planned against and exploited for somebody else's delight, that a secret has been kept from me, that a conspiracy has succeeded from which I was excluded. (I am not the easiest person to live with.) I loathe conflict (with everyone but the members of my household). There are many small, day-to-day conflicts with which I am simply unable to cope any longer without great agony and humiliation: a disagreement with a repairman who is cheating me out of service or a small amount of money, or a conversation of complaint with one of those blankly elusive people who work in the business offices of telephone companies. (I would sooner let myself be cheated.) Or the time the mice got into the apartment before I became a minor executive with my company and began earning enough money to move out of the city into my own home in Connecticut (which I hate).
I didn't know what to do about those mice. I never saw them. Only the cleaning woman did, or said she did, and one time my wife thought she did, and one time my wife's mother was almost sure she did. After a while the mice just disappeared. They went away. They stopped coming out. I'm not even sure they were really there.