Ошибка - стр. 14
Издали послышалось звяканье стеклянных бутылок. Мимо прошли два человека бомжеватого вида; один обернулся и спросил:
– Что, парень, совсем плохо, а?
– Да чё-то как-то совсем.
– У-у-у, а мне вот знаешь, как паршиво бывает, вначале вот особенно, а потом ничего, привык, даже подвалом обзавёлся… – он пустился в длинные объяснения, почему никогда не стоит унывать; затем стал рассказывать о разных типах водки.
Лежащий вытащил из кармана сторублёвую купюру и всучил бомжу, чтобы только тот отвязался. Довольный, он ушёл вместе с ворчащим от ожидания товарищем.
Наконец-то. Стали появляться первые звёзды.
Но тут тишина снова была нарушена. Звук чуть более приятный, чем будильник, но всё равно отвратительный. «Наверное, как обычно, какая-нибудь реклама. Хотя… Ладно, делать мне всё равно нечего».
– Алло?
– Mike, you? Recognised me?
– How couldn't I… As usual, you appear out of the blue.
– Well, beg your pardon. Can you imagine what happened today? After all that consuming my brain and time theory, we finally did some practice – on a flight simulator! It was…ersta-a-aunlich!!!
– Oh, please, don't fill me with your long ugly Deutsch-ish words! I'm kinda unable to understand.
– Na ja… Amazing! Incredible! Just… so-o-o nice!
– Well, the last word's obviously best chosen.
– You know, I'd been so nervous about that, really nervous, I've always… you know, inexplicable desire – wanted to fly, I mean, to fly on a huge complicated machine which is just inscrutably somehow controlled by me, and now I know it's really going to happen cause trainer said I was one of the best, just you know she said it directly to me so that nobody could hear, just not to offend, but… I'm so-o glad! So-o-o proud!!!
– I can imagine your puppy dog eyes…
– Eh? Really? Very likely, cause my relatives've always been telling me that, but… how could you know? We've never seen each other!
– I don't really know. It just occurred to me when I heard your voice. And, really – my congratulations. That's nice, when… when somebody has such a fire inside, you know.
– And my family – they were just overwhelmed, although they still say I'll kill myself as soon as I get the plane off the ground, just… they never believed and they won't, but… now I at least've got a hint of what I can, and that's… rather comforting.
– And aren't you afraid of flying on a real plane, my friend?
– Well, not exactly; not the machine itself's scary but the behaviour of a pilot who's a human anyway; that's true I'm more confident in a plane than in myself. But! I believe it's possible to bring oneself to the state of an automat, and now, again, I believe in spite of what my family says I'm able to do that.