Читать книгу Medusa´s child - Bernhard StoEver - Страница 4

O'Maley fought his way through the feverish heat that shrouded Los Angeles like a pall since days. The sour breeze of sweat and urine, steaming from pores and clothing, gave him a sense of familiarity. He could be satisfied for today, even though two boxes of fruit, scraps of food wrapped in newspaper, and a dozen empty bottles, for which he received a few pennies on the market, were scarcely sufficient for a carefree life in wealth. His hand felt over the shabby jacket, searching for the bottle of cheap red wine a shopkeeper had presented him in a porridge of pity and contempt. Alcohol made him insensitive against all sorts of physical pain. Even his leg did not cause him any trouble, no pain, no pulling, simply nothing. He had lost it in the war. A bomb destroyed an entire village, and his leg, too.

The shopping cart, which he was single-mindedly pushing, stopped abruptly. A loose flagstone blocked the front wheels, hard and absolute like a granite wall. The apples above were flung forward and jumped on the busy street. O`Maley instinctively reacted. With a speed no one would have expected, he hobbled behind them.

The approaching pickup left him no chance. It slammed dully, his head touched the hood, and he hurled in a high arc on the road. He was already unconscious when his body hit the ground. His wrong leg was bent at a right angle. The little dark spot that spread under his head mingled with the alcohol from the broken bottle to a thin red trickle.

O'Maley's eyes widened. The glaring white that exploded in his head faded to a diffuse grey, from which blurred figures peered out ghostly. Voices pierced his consciousness in waves and disappeared again into nothingness. The floor opened, and he fell back into a deep, black hole.

Despite her youth, the female ward doctor had no lack in experience. She carefully lifted an eyelid of the patient and shook her head in surprise. "He dreams, must have a strong will. Amazing that he has held out so long. "

The night nurse at her side nodded equably, "life is a powerful engine. What should happen to him? "

"He stays in intensive care, has to make an effort if he wants to get through." The two women left the sickroom without looking back.

The patient struggling with death got nothing from the conversation. He drifted helplessly in the maelstrom of his memories, until long past events flooded his consciousness and brought back to life. They cried out for a short moment and then disappeared silently in a wide blue ocean. And then that ended, too.

+