by Iain Banks
They were drawings of her face, done in hundreds of small lines to make a maze within them, all carefully penned in thin black India ink. He thought, still, even now, that they were the best work he had ever done.
He looked at them, swaying as he stood, feeling sick, sick to the stomach, sick to the brain, then one by one he dropped the drawings into the slack, limp waters of the dark canal. They slipped and side-slipped through the air, some falling together, some landing all by themselves, some landing face up and some face down, some obscured by others, some gazing up at the clear sky or down into the cloudy water. He watched as the water penetrated them, making the ink run blackly over the many versions of her face, while the slow current of the canal gradually took them, moved them, swept them away from him, towards the mouth of the tunnel, back under the hill and the houses and the distant traffic.
He watched them go, standing there, less sick now, the pain in his guts still there, his eyes unable to cry, then he zipped the portfolio up again. He was about to go, then he changed his mind; he went back to the grass bank, picked the spanking magazine up, threw it into the canal too, then waved the flies away from the bloody stump of black and white furred leg, picked it up by one still protruding claw, and slung it in the water as well.
He watched it all float towards the tunnel mouth; the great flat rectangles of paper like black-stained leaves from some strange winter tree; the magazine, like some dead bird, its spine sunk, pages like limp wings; the barely floating stump of leg, a couple of determined flies still hovering over it.
Then he kicked the blood-spotted dust off the towpath, sending it into the canal, stones sinking, dust coating the water. And as the dust floated in the air and on the water, and settled slowly on the path again, he walked off; away down the canalside, back up towards the little gate, towards the city again.
END
FB2 document info
Document ID: ff6bd1d5-36bb-4b57-9c03-647a246c791f
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 2010-01-12
Created using: doc2fb, FB Editor v2.0 software
Document authors :
Bakoro
Document history:
v1.0 : 14 June 2001 : HugHug using JSTextify
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
