（外文电子版资料）Spider Robinson - God is an Iron.pdf

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20documenten/spaar/Spider%20Robinson%20-%20God%20Is%20An%20Iron.txt GOD IS AN IRON By Spider Robinson I smelled her before I saw her. Even so, the first sight of her was shocking. She was sitting in a tan plastic-surfaced armchair, the kind where the front comes up as the back goes down. It was back as far as it would go. It was placed beside the large living-room window, whose curtains were drawn. A plastic block table next to it held a digital clock, a dozen unopened packages of Peter Jackson cigarettes, a glass jar full of packs of matches, an empty ashtray, a full vial of cocaine, and . a lamp with a bulb of at least 150 watts. It illuminated her with brutal clarity. She was naked. Her skin was the color of vanilla pudding. Her hair was in rats, her nails unpainted and untended, some overlong and some broken. There was dust on her. She sat in a ghastly sludge of feces and urine. Dried vomit was caked on her chin and between her breasts and down her ribs to the chair. These were only part of what I had smelled. The predominant odor was of fresh baked bread. It is the smell of a person who is starving to death. The combined effluvia had prepared me to find a senior citizen, paralyzed by a stroke or some such crisis. I judged her to be about twenty-five years old. I moved to where she could see me, and she did not see me. That was probably just as well, because I had just seen the two most horrible things. The first was the smile. They say that when the bomb went off at Hiroshima, some peoples shadows were baked onto walls by it. I think that smile got baked on the surface of my brain in much the same way. I dont want to talk about that smile. The second most horrible thing was the one that explained all the rest. From where I now stood I could see a triple socket in the wall beneath the window. Into it were plugged the lamp, the clock, and her.