[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
seemed at once rundown and full of energy, and those grey buildings gave way,
every now and again, to immaculate palaces and temples of an obviously earlier
age, perfectly restored but seemingly unused. And there was a graveyard,
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html (151 of 201)
[5/21/03 1:50:43 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html a cemetery
miles to each side, packed with millions of identical white pillars spread
geometrically across a green sea of grass.
I live in a dormitory with a hundred other men. I sweep leaves from the broad
paths of a park. Tall grey buildings rise on all sides, bulking square shapes
against the grainy, dusty-blue sky. There are spires and thin towers on top of
the buildings; banners I cannot read fly from them.
I sweep the leaves even when there are no leaves to sweep; it is the law. I
formed the impression when I
first came here that this was a prison, but this is not the case, at least not
in the obvious sense. It seemed then that everybody I met was either a
prisoner or a guard, and even when I was weighed and measured and inspected
and given my uniform and taken by bus to this large, anonymous town that
nothing had really changed. I could talk to relatively few people - this came
as no surprise, of course - but the ones I
did talk to seemed delighted that I could speak to them in my strange, alien
tongue, but also rather guarded when talking about their own circumstances. I
asked them if they had heard about the bridge;
some had, but when I said I came from there they seemed to think I was joking,
or even that I was mad.
Then my dreams changed, were taken over, invaded.
I woke up one night in the dormitory; the air was sick with the smell of
death, and choked with the sounds of people moaning and crying out. I looked
through a broken window and saw the flashes of distant explosions, the steady
glow of large fires, and could hear the crump of falling shells and bombs. I
was alone in the dormitory, the sounds and smells came from outside.
I felt weak and desperately hungry, more hungry than I had felt on the train
which had taken me away from the bridge. I discovered I had lost almost half
my weight during the night. I pinched myself and bit the inside of my cheek,
but I did not wake up. I looked round the deserted dormitory; the windows had
been covered in tape; black and white tape made X's all over the rectangular
panes. Outside, the town was burning.
I found some ill-fitting shoes and an old suit where my standard-issue uniform
should have been. I went out into the town. The park which I was supposed to
sweep was there, but covered in tents and surrounded by ruined buildings.
Planes droned overhead, or came hurtling down out of the cloudy night sky,
screaming. Explosions shook the ground and air; flames leapt into the sky.
Everywhere was rubble and the smell of death. I saw a dead, skinny horse,
fallen in its traces, the cart behind it half-covered by the ruins of a fallen
building. The horse was being carefully butchered by a group of thin,
wide-eyed men and women.
The clouds were orange islands against the ink-black sky; fires reflected
there on the hung vapour, and sent huge columns of their own darkness into the
air to meet them. The planes wheeled, like birds of carrion over the burning
town. Sometimes a searchlight would pick one out, and a few black puffs of
smoke would darken the sky around the plane still further, but it seemed that
otherwise the town was
Page 117
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html (152 of 201)
[5/21/03 1:50:43 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html defenceless.
Occasionally shells shrieked overhead; twice explosions nearby made me duck
for cover as debris - dusty bricks, shards of stone - fell pattering and
thumping around me.
I wandered for hours. Towards dawn, as I was returning to the dormitory
through this unending nightmare, I found myself behind two old people, a man
and a woman. They were walking along the street, each supporting the other,
when the man suddenly crumpled and fell, taking the old lady down with him. I
tried to help them up, but the man was already dead. There had been no bombs
or shells for several minutes, and though I thought I could hear distant
crackling small-arms fire, none of it was near us. The woman, almost as thin
and grey looking as the old dead man, cried hopelessly, sobbing and moaning
into the worn collar of the old man's coat, slowly shaking her head and
repeating over and over some words I
could not understand.
I did not think the shrivelled old could contain so many tears.
The dormitory was full of dead soldiers in grey uniforms when I returned. One
bed was unoccupied. I lay down on it and woke up.
It was the same peaceful, intact town, with the same trees and paths and tall
grey buildings. I was still here. The buildings I had seen in flames or in
ruins were those that overlooked the park where I worked.
When I looked carefully though, in some places I found stones which had not
been restored, and which were part of the original buildings. Some of those
blocks were chipped and scarred with the distinctive, but weathered, marks of
bullets and shrapnel.
I had similar dreams for weeks; always much the same, never exactly similar.
Somehow I was not surprised when I discovered that everybody had these dreams.
They were surprised; surprised that I had never had such dreams before. I
cannot understand, I tell them, why they seem frightened of their dreams.
That was the past, I say, this is the present; the future will be better, it
won't be the past.
They think there is a threat. I tell them there isn't. Some people have
started to avoid me. I tell the people who will listen that they are in
prison, but the prison is in their own heads.
I sat up drinking far too much spirit with my workmates last night. I told
them all about the bridge and that I had seen nothing threatening to them on
my long journey here. Most of them just said I was crazy and went to bed. I
stayed up too late, drank too much.
I have a hangover now, at the start of the week. I pick up my brush from the
depot and head into the chilly spaces of the park, where the leaves lie, damp
or frozen on the ground according to where the sunlight falls. They are
waiting for me in the park; four men and a big black car.
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html (153 of 201)
[5/21/03 1:50:43 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html
In the car two of them hit me while the other two talk about the women they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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seemed at once rundown and full of energy, and those grey buildings gave way,
every now and again, to immaculate palaces and temples of an obviously earlier
age, perfectly restored but seemingly unused. And there was a graveyard,
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html (151 of 201)
[5/21/03 1:50:43 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html a cemetery
miles to each side, packed with millions of identical white pillars spread
geometrically across a green sea of grass.
I live in a dormitory with a hundred other men. I sweep leaves from the broad
paths of a park. Tall grey buildings rise on all sides, bulking square shapes
against the grainy, dusty-blue sky. There are spires and thin towers on top of
the buildings; banners I cannot read fly from them.
I sweep the leaves even when there are no leaves to sweep; it is the law. I
formed the impression when I
first came here that this was a prison, but this is not the case, at least not
in the obvious sense. It seemed then that everybody I met was either a
prisoner or a guard, and even when I was weighed and measured and inspected
and given my uniform and taken by bus to this large, anonymous town that
nothing had really changed. I could talk to relatively few people - this came
as no surprise, of course - but the ones I
did talk to seemed delighted that I could speak to them in my strange, alien
tongue, but also rather guarded when talking about their own circumstances. I
asked them if they had heard about the bridge;
some had, but when I said I came from there they seemed to think I was joking,
or even that I was mad.
Then my dreams changed, were taken over, invaded.
I woke up one night in the dormitory; the air was sick with the smell of
death, and choked with the sounds of people moaning and crying out. I looked
through a broken window and saw the flashes of distant explosions, the steady
glow of large fires, and could hear the crump of falling shells and bombs. I
was alone in the dormitory, the sounds and smells came from outside.
I felt weak and desperately hungry, more hungry than I had felt on the train
which had taken me away from the bridge. I discovered I had lost almost half
my weight during the night. I pinched myself and bit the inside of my cheek,
but I did not wake up. I looked round the deserted dormitory; the windows had
been covered in tape; black and white tape made X's all over the rectangular
panes. Outside, the town was burning.
I found some ill-fitting shoes and an old suit where my standard-issue uniform
should have been. I went out into the town. The park which I was supposed to
sweep was there, but covered in tents and surrounded by ruined buildings.
Planes droned overhead, or came hurtling down out of the cloudy night sky,
screaming. Explosions shook the ground and air; flames leapt into the sky.
Everywhere was rubble and the smell of death. I saw a dead, skinny horse,
fallen in its traces, the cart behind it half-covered by the ruins of a fallen
building. The horse was being carefully butchered by a group of thin,
wide-eyed men and women.
The clouds were orange islands against the ink-black sky; fires reflected
there on the hung vapour, and sent huge columns of their own darkness into the
air to meet them. The planes wheeled, like birds of carrion over the burning
town. Sometimes a searchlight would pick one out, and a few black puffs of
smoke would darken the sky around the plane still further, but it seemed that
otherwise the town was
Page 117
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html (152 of 201)
[5/21/03 1:50:43 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html defenceless.
Occasionally shells shrieked overhead; twice explosions nearby made me duck
for cover as debris - dusty bricks, shards of stone - fell pattering and
thumping around me.
I wandered for hours. Towards dawn, as I was returning to the dormitory
through this unending nightmare, I found myself behind two old people, a man
and a woman. They were walking along the street, each supporting the other,
when the man suddenly crumpled and fell, taking the old lady down with him. I
tried to help them up, but the man was already dead. There had been no bombs
or shells for several minutes, and though I thought I could hear distant
crackling small-arms fire, none of it was near us. The woman, almost as thin
and grey looking as the old dead man, cried hopelessly, sobbing and moaning
into the worn collar of the old man's coat, slowly shaking her head and
repeating over and over some words I
could not understand.
I did not think the shrivelled old could contain so many tears.
The dormitory was full of dead soldiers in grey uniforms when I returned. One
bed was unoccupied. I lay down on it and woke up.
It was the same peaceful, intact town, with the same trees and paths and tall
grey buildings. I was still here. The buildings I had seen in flames or in
ruins were those that overlooked the park where I worked.
When I looked carefully though, in some places I found stones which had not
been restored, and which were part of the original buildings. Some of those
blocks were chipped and scarred with the distinctive, but weathered, marks of
bullets and shrapnel.
I had similar dreams for weeks; always much the same, never exactly similar.
Somehow I was not surprised when I discovered that everybody had these dreams.
They were surprised; surprised that I had never had such dreams before. I
cannot understand, I tell them, why they seem frightened of their dreams.
That was the past, I say, this is the present; the future will be better, it
won't be the past.
They think there is a threat. I tell them there isn't. Some people have
started to avoid me. I tell the people who will listen that they are in
prison, but the prison is in their own heads.
I sat up drinking far too much spirit with my workmates last night. I told
them all about the bridge and that I had seen nothing threatening to them on
my long journey here. Most of them just said I was crazy and went to bed. I
stayed up too late, drank too much.
I have a hangover now, at the start of the week. I pick up my brush from the
depot and head into the chilly spaces of the park, where the leaves lie, damp
or frozen on the ground according to where the sunlight falls. They are
waiting for me in the park; four men and a big black car.
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html (153 of 201)
[5/21/03 1:50:43 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,%20Iain%20-%20The%20Bridge.html
In the car two of them hit me while the other two talk about the women they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]