Читать книгу Memory Wall - Anthony Doerr, Anthony Doerr - Страница 36
BOY FALLING FROM THE SKY
ОглавлениеTemba is looking into the shifting, inarticulate shapes of Alma’s backyard leaves when a boy falls from the sky. He crashes into some hedges and clambers out onto the grass and places his head in the center of the morning sun and peers down at Temba with a corona of light spilling out around his head.
“Temba?” the silhouette says. His voice is hoarse and unsteady. His ears glow pink where the sunlight passes through them. He speaks in English. “Are you Temba?”
“My glasses,” says Temba. The garden is a sea of black and white. The face in front of him shifts and a sudden avalanche of light pierces Temba’s eyes. Something bubbles inside his gut. His tongue tastes of the sweet, sticky medicine his father spooned into his mouth.
Now hands are putting on Temba’s glasses for him. Temba squints up, blinking.
“My paps works here.”
“I know.” The boy is whispering. Fear travels through his voice.
Temba tries whispering, too. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Me either.”
Temba’s eyesight comes back to him. Big palms and rosebushes and a cabbage tree loom against the garden wall. He tries to make out the boy standing over him against the backdrop of the sun. He has smooth brown skin and a wool cap over his lightly felted head. He reaches down and tugs the blanket up around Temba’s shoulders.