Online čitanka četvrtkom: Noć poslije bundeva

Nakon Noći vještica, evo i par odgovarajućih priča koje će vam olakšati povratak u normalan svijet i mjesec studeni. Nije baš riječ o hororima, ali svaka sadrži jezivu notu koja će vam barem malo rashladiti krv.

Započet ćemo s pričom o ludim znanstvenicima, koji su ionako odgovorni za većinu čudovišnih junaka u literaturi. U stvari, u njoj nema toliko riječi o samim ljudima koji su prešli zabranjene granice, koliko o njihovoj ostavštini, kćerima koje su ostale iza njih i teretom njihovog odnosa sa očevima. Imena Frankenstein, Moreau, Rappaccini, Jekyll, Hyde, Raymond i Van Helsing su vam možda poznata, neka možda i nisu, ali detalji koji su pronašli put od njihovih priča do ove su vrlo precizni¹. Mad Scientist’s Daughter, priča u dva dijela Theodore Goss, govori o kćerima ludih znanstvenika, koje su jedna drugoj prijateljice i podrška, te o njihovom odnosu sa zloglasnim očevima.

In London, we formed a club. It’s very exclusive. There are only six members. Five of us live on the premises. Helen, who is married, lives in Bloomsbury, but she comes to have dinner with us twice a week. We need each other. None of us has sisters, except Mary and Diana in a way, so we take the place of sisters for each other. Who else could share or sympathize with our experiences?

---

I. The House Near Regent’s Park

Mary created a trust that holds the deed to the house. We are all listed as beneficiaries:

Miss Justine Frankenstein

Miss Catherine Moreau

Miss Beatrice Rappaccini

Miss Mary Jekyll

Miss Diana Hyde

Mrs. Arthur Meyrinck (née Helen Raymond)

But it is her house, really. Her father left it to her, along with a moderate fortune. She is the only one of us who has inherited any money. Science does not pay well; mad science pays even worse.

"Ako isključimo nemoguće, sve što je preostalo, ma kako nevjerojatno bilo, mora biti istina."

Neil Gaiman. Ime je dovoljno da mnogim čitateljima odmah narastu zazubice. Gaiman je majstor preplitanja mitskih svjetova i motiva, često na neočekivane načine. A Study in Emerald (PDF, 5.1 MB) pokazuje svijet Sherlocka Holmesa itekako obilježen Cthulhu mitologijom. Priča je 2004. osvojila Huga i nabijena je podtekstom koji će biti razumljiv onima koji su čitali djela Arthura Conana Doylea².

It is the immensity, I believe. The hugeness of things below. The darkness of dreams.

But I am woolgathering. Forgive me. I am not literary man.

I had been in need of lodgings. That was how I met him. I wanted someone to share the cost of rooms with me. We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, in the chemical laboratories of St. Bart’s. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” that was what he said to me,and my mouth fell open and my eyes opened widw.

“Astonishing.” I said.

“not really.” said the stranger in the white lab-coat who was to become my friend. ” from the way you hold your arm, I see you have been wounded, an in a particular way. You have a deep tan. You also have a military bearing, and there are few enough places in the Empire that a military man can be both tanned and, given the nature of the injury to your dhoulder and the traditions of the Afghan cave-folk, tortured.

Put like this, of course, it was absurdly simple.

Bića koja vrebaju iz mraka, izgleda, niti stare niti umiru. Wishbones autorice Cherie Priest priča o jednom takvom biću i strahu koji širi. O kakvim je kostima riječ se saznaje iz dva različita razdoblja, američkog građanskog rata i današnjice. Priča je objavljena 2006. u antologiji Aegri Somnia, koja je bila nominirna za nagradu Bram Stoker.

At the Andersonville camp there is a great, stinking dread. The Confederates don’t have enough food of their own, so they sure as hell aren’t feeding their prisoners of war; and the prisoners who aren’t wasting away are dying of diseases faster than they can be replaced. Here, the world smells like bloody shit and coal smoke. It reeks of body odor and piss, and sweat.

South Georgia is nowhere to live by choice, and nowhere to die by starving.

The remains—the bodies of the ones who finally fell and couldn’t rise again—they lie in naked piles, leather over skeletons as thin as hat racks. They lie in stacks waiting to be put into the ground. They collect in the back buildings because no one is strong enough to dig anymore, not blue nor gray.

This does not explain why, at night and sometimes between the watches, the piles are shrinking.

Kad smo već kod čudovišta, spomenimo i ona iz morskih dubina. Stari majstor Ray Bradbury u priči The Fog Horn pripovijeda o samoći takvih bića, samoći koju svjetioničari dobro poznaju. Ova priča je poslužila kao predložak za film The Beast from 20.000 Fathoms iz 1953. godine, i ako ste gledali film, prepoznat ćete neke slike u tekstu.

“It’s a lonely life, but you’re used to it now, aren’t you?” asked McDunn.

“Yes,” I said.  You’re a good talker, thank the Lord.”

“Well, it’s your turn on land tomorrow,” he said, smiling, “to dance the ladies and drink gin.”

“What do you think McDunn, when I leave you out here alone?”

“On the mysteries of the sea.” McDunn lit his pipe. It was a quarter past seven of a cold November evening, the heat on, the light switching it’s tail in two hundred directions, the Fog Horn bumbling in the high throat of the tower.  There wasn’t a town for a hundred miles down the coast, just a road, which came lonely through the dead country to the sea, with few cars on it, a stretch of two miles of cold water out to our rock, and rare few ships.

The mysteries of the sea,” said McDunn thoughtfully. “You know, the ocean’s the biggest damned snowflake ever? It rolls and swells a thousand shapes and colours, no two alike.  Strange.

Na kraju, evo i neizbježnih zombija, ovaj put u vrlo aktualnom socio-ekonomskom kontekstu. Michael Swanwick se 1996. u priči The Dead pozabavio idejom upotrebe zombija kao jeftine radne snage, kao i njenim posljedicama³. Kako bi svijet izgledao kada bi mrtvi hodači umjesto konzumiranja svježih mozgova završili kao jeftina radna snaga?

Između ostalog, izvrsni su ljubimci!

Three boy zombies in matching red jackets bussed our table, bringing water, lighting candles, brushing away the crumbs between courses. Their eyes were dark, attentive, lifeless; their hands and faces so white as to be faintly luminous in the hushed light. I thought it in bad taste, but “This is Manhattan,” Courtney said. “A certain studied offensiveness is fashionable here.”

The blond brought menus and waited for our order.

We both ordered pheasant. “An excellent choice,” the boy said in a clear, emotionless voice. He went away and came back a minute later with the freshly strangled birds, holding them up for our approval. He couldn’t have been more than eleven when he died and his skin was of that sort connoisseurs call “milk glass,” smooth, without blemish, and all but translucent. He must have cost a fortune.

Xaotix

Mirko Karas je zamjenik glavne urednice NOSF-a, pisac u pokušaju, obožavatelj svih sportova na vodi u bilo kojem agregatnom stanju i potpredsjednik društva SFera. Ne piše blog, ne voli Twitter, a Facebook još manje.

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