Читать книгу White - Deni Ellis Bechard - Страница 2

But sometimes I read books with magic, in other lands, and I think that if I had left home younger, I could have found a better life, because that is what the heroes are always doing. There are enemies and monsters to be fought, but at the end of that, there is always a better life. And I also read horror books because the world is full of terrors, of things that eat you, of people who look at you with eyes like fangs, and after each story of horror, I am grateful. I have lived the horror in my mind and survived it, and I am stronger, more alive. And I even love those books you whites so enjoy, about how to improve every aspect of yourself, how to cure your wife’s unhappiness by thanking her and making her feel special for the chores women have done since the dawn of time, and how to look in the mirror and admire the man staring back at you as if Jesus were just behind the glass, whispering that you are perfect. When I read them, I see myself as a wealthy general with a dozen happy wives and a hundred adoring children, and I picture a national disaster and everyone asking me for the solution, and I realize that I would be as good if not better than any other man to lead my people. Even after I wake from this dream, I don’t feel deceived, and for days afterward, I walk a little lighter. But in truth, I prefer books of the technological future in which we can repair anything, even our bodies and our minds, or go to other planets, and I am sad because I was born too early and because these stories—which will someday happen without me—they tell me the truth of how soon my life will be forgotten.