vineri, 5 februarie 2010

What's it going to be then, eh?

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.

The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither.

Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I'm starting off the story with.

Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's guts. But, as they say, money isn't everything.

The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion, which in those days was a pair of black very tight tights with the old jelly mould, as we called it, fitting on the crotch underneath the tights, this being to protect and also a sort of a design you could viddy clear enough in a certain light, so that I had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a rooker (a hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (face, that is). Dim not ever having much of an idea of things and being, beyond all shadow of a doubting thomas, the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty jackets without lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders ('pletchoes' we called them) which were a kind of a mockery of having real shoulders like that. Then, my brothers, we had these off-white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork. We wore our hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for kicking.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

There were three devotchkas sitting at the counter all together, but there were four of us malchicks and it was usually like one for all and all for one. These sharps were dressed in the height of fashion too, with purple and green and orange wigs on their gullivers, each one not costing less than three or four weeks of those sharps' wages, I should reckon, and make-up to match (rainbows round the glazzies, that is, and the rot painted very wide). Then they had long black very straight dresses, and on the groody part of them they had little badges of like silver with different malchicks' names on them - Joe and Mike and suchlike. These were supposed to be the names of the different malchicks they'd spatted with before they were fourteen. They kept looking our way and I nearly felt like saying the three of us (out of the corner of my rot, that is) should go off for a bit of pol and leave poor old Dim behind, because it would be just a matter of kupetting Dim a demi-litre of white but this time with a dollop of synthemesc in it, but that wouldn't really have been playing like the game. Dim was very very ugly and like his name, but he was a horrorshow filthy fighter and very handy with the boot.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

The chelloveck sitting next to me, there being this long big plushy seat that ran round three walls, was well away with his glazzies glazed and sort of burbling slovos like "Aristotle wishy washy works outing cyclamen get forficulate smartish". He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done, but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a veshch, O my brothers. You'd lay there after you'd drunk the old moloko and then you got the messel that everything all round you was sort of in the past. You could viddy it all right, all of it, very clear - tables, the stereo, the lights, the sharps and the malchicks - but it was like some veshch that used to be there but was not there not no more. And you were sort of hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might be, and at the same time you were sort of picked up by the old scruff and shook like you might be a cat. You got shook and shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name and your body and your self and you just didn't care, and you waited until your boot or finger-nail got yellow, then yellower and yellower all the time. Then the lights started cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or, as it might be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a big big big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and you were just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was all over. You came back to here and now whimpering sort of, with your rot all squaring up for a boohoohoo. Now that's very nice but very cowardly. You were not put on this earth just to get in touch with God. That sort of thing could sap all the strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"


Nu va spun din ce e. Daca nu stiti, nasol. Daca stiti, shi mai nasol...

:wink:

24 comentarii:

strelnikov spunea...

dude :)

e sfanta evanghelie, that is.

Anca spunea...

Bai, unii am dat examen din asta, nu te juca! :D

Turambar spunea...

@ Strelnikov: lol. sfanta evanghelie dupa alex, citire. Slava batei si bocancului si boxului in guuuuraaaa :)

@ Anca: lol la patrat. daca a trebuit sa datz shi examen din asta, e f nasol pentru sanatatea voastra psihica si morala. Apropos: cum a fost egzamenul ala? Teoretic sau practic? Cu victime sau doar cu incalcarea regimului circulatziei rutiere?

:rofl:

Anca spunea...

Asa, hlizeste-te, mandra minune, ca-i si de te hlizit, nimic de zis. :)) Pe masura ce stam de povesti, in baza rezultatului care sunt, ai sa te prinzi si cum au fost examenele din minunata institutie de stat pe ganduri. =))

Turambar spunea...

Deci sa intzeleg ca, totushi, egzamenul a fost practic. O singura intrebare limpezitoare: voi eratz aia care bateatz, sau aia care incasatz?

Ha. Auzi tu, ce studentzie, frate...

:rofl:

Anca spunea...

Noi examinam resturile -- la anatomie artistica. =))

Turambar spunea...

Aha. Am intzeles. Facultatea de prelucratori prin ashchiere - sectzia prelucrari plastice si chiar shi artistice.

:) :) :)

Anca spunea...

Nu, mah, aia erau sculeri-matritzerii de la ceramica! :)) Noi eram aia care se-nvarteau conceptual si vizual in juru' tuturor raha... detaliilor, ca sa li se para subiectilor mult mai greu whatever they were workin' on -- totu' intru obtinere de rezultate prestabilit statice, prestabilit dinamice, accidental statice sau accidental dinamice; predominant cu accidental in fatza si cosmetizate in raport by labelling them Serendipity. :))

Turambar spunea...

Aha! Gata! Am intzeles. Tu ai facut Facultatea de Critici Literar-Artistici, Sectzia Criminali in Serie Mica, departamentul Calai Estetici prin Torturare Verbala Repetitiv-Percutiva

:) :) :)

Anonim spunea...

de altfel nu e ocolita nici cartea cartilor, uite ce zice criticul alex

I didn't so much like the latter part of the Book, which is more like all preachy talking than fighting and the old in-out. I liked the parts where these old yahoodies tolchock each other and then drink their Hebrew vino, and getting onto the bed with their wives' handmaidens. That kept me going

Anca spunea...

Critici? No, no, no, missster, au contraire, sectia Admiratori Neobositi Si De Mare Incredere, Desi Indoielnici Dupa Interfatza. :D

Turambar spunea...

@ Strelnikov: Ma, tu citeshti Biblia, ma... :)

@ Anca: Aha, gata, am intzeles. Cea mai groaznica facultate: aia de Management Artistic.

Aaaargh! Sa fugim! Ne menegiuieshte... Repede, ingropatzi creativitatea shi otravitzi fantanile! Vin oamenii nasoi cu cifrele la subsoara, sa faca marketing pe noi

:D

Anca spunea...

Aaaano, no, no, missster, estetz' pe campii cu Ciubotica-Cucului, nu intr-ale managementului ne educasera, nici pa Industria Maselor Plastice, nici pa Industria Individualitatilor Plastice. Noi eram aia practicantii, de fixam memoriile si cu dragutza de cutie de cafea, daca era cazu', dandu-i gauri pe unde stiam noi mai bine si hranind-o cu hartie emotionabila la lumina, bai!

Turambar spunea...

Aha. Am intzeles. Facultatea de Psihologie Fotografica.

:)

Si zici ca ai facut poze si cu cutia gaurita? Ca pe vremuri, nu, cand s-a inventat aparatul de pacalit ochii...

:)

Anca spunea...

Daaaaa, facuram buna treaba si ca pa vremuri, cu timpi luuuuungi de expunere la pericole si binefaceri luminoase, pe sistem trial and error. :)

Ma omooooooori cu nomenclatoru-ti de studioteci, baaai! Iar mi-ai amintit de asta -- varianta pe jobs. :))

Turambar spunea...

Hugh Laurie? Excelent. Habar n-aveam de el. Txs for helping this clumsy mind discovering and exploring new realms of useless fun :)

Anca spunea...

Imposibilule! :)

Turambar spunea...

:p

Anca spunea...

Duamne, cat bine poate sa-mi faca centimetru' asta patrat de W.A.! =))

Turambar spunea...

lol. what about Friday night, then?

:D

Anca spunea...

We have reached a verdict, your honor. This man's heart is deficient. He loves, but his love is worth nothing.

Anca spunea...

Si daca tot am ajuns aici:
I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. Nothing but a bunch of big ideas and stories and people dying, and then people like you. The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word free to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.
Miiinunat. =))

Lucian Davidescu spunea...

"And it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar and I felt all the malenky little hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling up like slow malenky lizards and then down again. Because I knew what she sang. It was a bit from the glorious Ninth, by Ludwig van."

Florin Pîtea spunea...

Pe unii *i-am pus* să dea examen din asta. :D
În altă dezordine de idei, poftiţi de aflaţi ce s-a scris în genul ăsta Dincolo de Apă:
http://sites.google.com/site/florinpitea/indexr-html/sf-si-fantasy-american/jack-womack