Neil Gaiman
2009年3月9日 星期一
A short story by him that I quite like.
"Amelia Earnshawe placed the slices of wholewheat bread in the toaster and pushed it down. She set the timer to dark brown, just as George liked it, Amelia preferred her toast barely singed. She liked white bread as well, even if it didn't have the vitamins. She hadn't eaten white bread for a decade now.
At the breakfast table, George read his paper. He did not look up. He never looked up.
I hate him, she thought, and simply putting the emotion into words surprised her. She said it again in her head. I hate him. It was like a song. I hate him for his toast and for his bald head, and for the way he chases the office crumpet - girls barely out of school who laugh at him behind his back, and for the way he ignores me whenever he doesn't want to be bothered with me, and for the way he says, "What, love?' when I ask him a simple question, as if he's long ago forgotten my name. As if he's forgotten that I even had a name.
'Scrambled or boiled?' she said aloud.
'What, love?'
George Earnshawe regarded his wife with a fond affection, and would have found her hatred of him astonishing. He thought of her in the same way, and with the same emotions, that he thought of anything that had been in the house for ten years and still worked well. The television, for example. Or the lawnmower. He thought it was love. 'You know, we ought to go on one of those marches,' he said, tapping the newspaper's editorial. 'Show we're committed. Eh, love?'
The toaster made a noise to show it was done. Only one dark brown slice had popped up. She took a knife and fished out the torn second slice with it. The toaster had been a wedding present from her Uncle John. Soon she'd have to buy another, or start cooking toast under the grill the way her mother had done.
"George? Do you want your eggs scrambled or boiled?' she asked, very quietly, and there was something in her voice that made him looked up.
'Any way you like it, love,' he said amiably, and would not for the life of him, as he told everyone in the office later that morning, understand why she simply stood there holding her slice of toast, or why she started to cry."
-Neil Gaiman-
