Читать книгу Alamo Theory - Josh Bell - Страница 10

Where the I Comes From

Our days often ended and began

with the sound of voices raised

in song. Even after we murdered

our friends and neighbors. Even

after we brought the attention

of our knives to the neighbors of

our neighbors, until at last

the neighborhoods fell silent

and the cities quiet and the city’s

city, the country then and next

the country, until finally the moon,

as if its own reflection, looked

upon an Earth that we had emptied

nearly back to Eden. Even then,

in that silence that seemed almost

a silence, sadly we were not

alone. All we ever wanted was

to be alone, to visit no one, to be

visited by nothing. But even after

we’d traveled to the nearby planets

and relieved them of their voices,

even after — and we all knew

this was coming — we fell amongst

each other, brother and sister,

until only I survived, still I heard it,

the universe subtracted of its skin

and hair, and yet the sound

of a voice, like someone singing

in the hold of a sinking ship,

unbidden and irrelevant, a fathom

and a fathom deep, but never fading.