Read Online infinities by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Scott Nicholson, Garry Kilworth, Eric Brown, John Grant, Anna Tambour, Kaitlin Queen, Iain Rowan, Linda Nagata, Keith Brooke - Free Book Online
Authors: Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Scott Nicholson, Garry Kilworth, Eric Brown, John Grant, Anna Tambour, Kaitlin Queen, Iain Rowan, Linda Nagata, Keith Brooke
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the watchful eye of the deli's owner, Mr. Perkins, I'd piled it as high with sauerkraut as I dared, on the basis that on a budget like mine one should grab free additional nutrition wherever one could. That had possibly been, in retrospect, a mistake.
"How are your studies going?"
"Very well indeed," I replied, relaxing for the first time during this ritual weekly inquisition. It was true. So long as I kept my nose to the grindstone for the rest of the academic year, my doctorate was in the bag.
"Well, do keep yourself safe, dear. Your father and I miss you very much indeed."
Dad missed me so much that he could never bring himself to come to the phone to talk to his only son. As I put the phone down, after the usual tepid goodbyes exchanged with Mom, I entertained the fantasy that finally, fed up with his constant grousing, she'd slaughtered him with his own lawnmower and buried the shreds in the back yard. I'd never have known if she had, for all the contact there was between him and me except during those vacations that I went home. Yes, at Christmas-time I'd arrive back at the family bourn to discover my mother waiting to make a tearful confession to me ...
"Your father – he had a terrible accident. He mistook himself for a clump of dandelions, and before I could find the lawnmower's off-switch he'd reduced himself to a heap of tuna melts."
"Now, mother," I'd say sternly, "there is no need to lie to me. Where did you bury what was left of the old bastard?"
"Well, I didn't so much bury the bits as hammer them into the ground with the back of a shovel. Can you ever forgive me for having deprived you of a parent?"
"Break out the beer."
I shook my head, grinning at myself. Mom would never say a harsh word about my father, let alone murder him. It wouldn't be "nice."
~
The next week was spent in the usual hamster-wheel of study, although my mind was constantly being distracted by anticipation of Monday afternoon at the Rupolo. The owner didn't announce in advance what movies he'd be showing: he assumed the addicts and the adulterous or underage couples would just turn up anyway and be happy to take pot luck. This actually suited me well: knowledge of what movies were going to be screened would probably have dulled the keen edge of my expectancy. As it was, I could dream of unknown glories without being shackled by any fetters of the realistic.
That second Monday, one of the two movies was in color – a great disappointment to me, because more even than the subject matter it was the black-and-white ambience of these movies that had so rapidly addicted me. The offending movie was The Man Who Never Was , a tale of British intelligence officers outwitting the Axis by inventing a personality and grafting it onto an anonymous corpse, which they then arranged to have discovered by the Germans; the point of the story was that planted on the corpse were all sorts of faked secrets, so that German efforts would be misdirected. As with The Dam Busters , all this was absolutely absorbing as an item of forgotten – at least by me – history, and yet for a very similar reason it all seemed rather remote and irrelevant. It was as if I were watching a swarm of angry hornets from behind the safety of a sealed window, so that the fury could be impressive and perhaps even slightly frightening but at the same time so distanced by the presence of the glass that it could be appreciated intellectually rather than emotionally.
That was the second of the two movies shown. The first was in trusty, much-loved black-and-white, and was called Reach for the Sky . In it a British fighter pilot managed to lose both legs in an accident, yet with the aid of prosthetics was able to take to the skies once more and continue his career of shooting down Axis planes. He was shot down himself and spent some time in reassuringly familiar territory – a prisoner-of-war camp. There were some great flying shots, and the story had considerable human
"How are your studies going?"
"Very well indeed," I replied, relaxing for the first time during this ritual weekly inquisition. It was true. So long as I kept my nose to the grindstone for the rest of the academic year, my doctorate was in the bag.
"Well, do keep yourself safe, dear. Your father and I miss you very much indeed."
Dad missed me so much that he could never bring himself to come to the phone to talk to his only son. As I put the phone down, after the usual tepid goodbyes exchanged with Mom, I entertained the fantasy that finally, fed up with his constant grousing, she'd slaughtered him with his own lawnmower and buried the shreds in the back yard. I'd never have known if she had, for all the contact there was between him and me except during those vacations that I went home. Yes, at Christmas-time I'd arrive back at the family bourn to discover my mother waiting to make a tearful confession to me ...
"Your father – he had a terrible accident. He mistook himself for a clump of dandelions, and before I could find the lawnmower's off-switch he'd reduced himself to a heap of tuna melts."
"Now, mother," I'd say sternly, "there is no need to lie to me. Where did you bury what was left of the old bastard?"
"Well, I didn't so much bury the bits as hammer them into the ground with the back of a shovel. Can you ever forgive me for having deprived you of a parent?"
"Break out the beer."
I shook my head, grinning at myself. Mom would never say a harsh word about my father, let alone murder him. It wouldn't be "nice."
~
The next week was spent in the usual hamster-wheel of study, although my mind was constantly being distracted by anticipation of Monday afternoon at the Rupolo. The owner didn't announce in advance what movies he'd be showing: he assumed the addicts and the adulterous or underage couples would just turn up anyway and be happy to take pot luck. This actually suited me well: knowledge of what movies were going to be screened would probably have dulled the keen edge of my expectancy. As it was, I could dream of unknown glories without being shackled by any fetters of the realistic.
That second Monday, one of the two movies was in color – a great disappointment to me, because more even than the subject matter it was the black-and-white ambience of these movies that had so rapidly addicted me. The offending movie was The Man Who Never Was , a tale of British intelligence officers outwitting the Axis by inventing a personality and grafting it onto an anonymous corpse, which they then arranged to have discovered by the Germans; the point of the story was that planted on the corpse were all sorts of faked secrets, so that German efforts would be misdirected. As with The Dam Busters , all this was absolutely absorbing as an item of forgotten – at least by me – history, and yet for a very similar reason it all seemed rather remote and irrelevant. It was as if I were watching a swarm of angry hornets from behind the safety of a sealed window, so that the fury could be impressive and perhaps even slightly frightening but at the same time so distanced by the presence of the glass that it could be appreciated intellectually rather than emotionally.
That was the second of the two movies shown. The first was in trusty, much-loved black-and-white, and was called Reach for the Sky . In it a British fighter pilot managed to lose both legs in an accident, yet with the aid of prosthetics was able to take to the skies once more and continue his career of shooting down Axis planes. He was shot down himself and spent some time in reassuringly familiar territory – a prisoner-of-war camp. There were some great flying shots, and the story had considerable human
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