Читать книгу The End Specialist - Drew Magary, Drew Magary - Страница 17

At The Protests

Our apartment is uncomfortably spacious now. I see the wine stains on the couch, and I hear Katy’s manic giggling like she’s still present. I don’t ever recall seeing her moody or displeased, which makes her abrupt and violent end all the more unbearable. All I can do is keep drinking and banter with her in my mind.

A pro-cure blogger named Ladyhawke posted another account of what happened yesterday, as witnessed from outside the UN. Apparently, she was one of the protesters.

HOW MANY HAVE TO DIE?

We were facing the UN and screaming our heads off when the explosion drowned us out for a millisecond. But no one knew what the hell was going on. One person in the crowd screamed, “They’re trying to kill us!” and that was enough to set people fleeing in every direction. One guy pushed me to the ground so he could run past me. I was lucky; I saw another guy who couldn’t have been older than seventeen, fall and get his head stepped on. I have no clue if he ever got back up. I got up and immediately began running up First Avenue. I assumed it was a terrorist attack. I mean, it was a terrorist attack. But I thought it was, you know, a terrorist terrorist attack. Someone from Saudi Arabia or something. My run up the avenue was complicated by the fact that everyone was staring at their damn phones and tablets and not at the road ahead of them. So I got bumped into from behind and from the side, as if someone had released a stampede of blind bulls onto the street. I got kicked in the back of the leg. Now I have a black welt there the size of a lemon.

Needless to say, now that we know what really happened, that these doctors had been systematically targeted—I’d argue they were assassinated—we are pissed. We’re already gathering outside the UN and the Capitol right now. We will number in the tens of thousands by morning, I can promise you that. How many more doctors will the president allow to be blown to pieces before he finally realizes he’s made a huge mistake? We’ve been protesting peacefully for months, but these pro-death people—who got what they wanted, by the way—are free to just randomly kill innocent people? These are doctors who treasure life enough to bestow more of it upon the rest of us. We’re through being nice about this. We’re not taking no for an answer this time around.

—Ladyhawke

I don’t know where any of this is going, and I don’t know which side will come out on top, or which side even deserves to. All I know is I feel an increasing urge to get the hell away from it all.

Date Modified: 7/4/2019, 8:47PM