Witz полностью

Here in Class, there are sons of Sanders and Sandermans and Sandermens and Sandersens and Sanfords and Sandfords, too, in this row alone. Up front are all the Arnolds, with the Zimmers down toward the rear. In Rows 1–2, the Abernathy family, with the Bertrams, and the Christians, the Christiansens, the Christiansons, in Row 3 the Donalds, and Elmores, in Rows 4–8 the Hards, and the Hesses; there are whole sections of O’Malleys, O’Nallys, O’Nellys, Spinellis, Tartellis, and Worths. Amid the Sandersons here in Class, there’s a whole family of them, myriad generations like stars or their light: greatgrandfather and mother, grandfather and mother, father and mother, and lastly Mister & Misses Sanderson, who were wed only last night: the sky, like the glass should’ve been but wasn’t, is freshly shattered; this trip’s their honeymoon, though enforced, if required, Misses Sanderson’s first appreciable time spent at the pleasure of her new relatives, the Sanderson-inlaws, and so far she hasn’t spilled anything, so good; let’s hope, we hope, this luck holds.

After the Zwicks, and the Zychs, there’s a vestibule of bathrooms, all currently Occupied, reserved only for the needs of those flying Class — as for the rest, they’ll go where they’re going.

After Class, then, is the section called No Class: there are no seats here and its people, they’re stacked to the top, writhing limbs and sinuous spines — the airing of grievance, the noise: that of a crack or break, a short dry snap; heads peek through holes the span of one life, heads poke through the holes of their mouths voicing death, screams fill the section, and shouts for help, food and water, then a hatch opens a draft and silence and a steward or stewardess who can tell or breathe even throws a mess of water and food out into the mess, then the struggle all over again: these shoes stepping throats to the floor, these hands strangling other hands, teeth gnashing at teeth, women and infants and their fathers, their husbands, turned a cargo of raw, suppurating, unidentifiable flesh; then, it quiets again with the hatch opened a creak, cracked light from the front, and another steward or stewardess throws in more, leftovers from Class, more food and water probably not potable now, then the struggle begins yet again.

Though soon, they’ll reach the Meeting Point…we’re talking the huge illuminated I, the zentrum, the centrum or center, give or take, they’re not sure what to do, what’s expected — where wakefulness is sleep, where sleep is dream, where dream is, forget it, all Under the Sign of the Eigenlicht, the hypnagogic giving way to the hypnopompic, don’t you understand (in Class, they’re popping those suspect pills, spread out scattered on their trays alongside tumblers of water, these medications on prescriptions from physician friends become newly Affiliated, feeling just terrible about this whole situation, I’m sure — tell me, what should I do about it, this isn’t exactly healing a body, it’s more like healing a world) — this is where everything falls into the Other, its other Other…a past, previous incarnations: the fall of the physical into the nonphysical, the idea into the act, the way the spheres merge, sun, then split, moon, then merge again, sun to moon then sun again…in Class cleared, a heap of maps now spread out on their trays, too, though no maps are really necessary, though they’re not forbidden, just not advised, excess, an overpack: after all, it’s not as if they’ll ever be left on their own, to fend for themselves and their lives, without oversight, without guidance. Anyway, they’ve all long memorized the Quarters — they’ve had hours, all day, days; they know what to expect. They’re only touring to confirm their suspicions, only traveling in order to compare their own Real with that of their others, whomever. They trace the land’s imperfections with eyes crucified on their forefingers; pointing some to the left, others to the right, they behold the sky out their windows though the sky is everywhere, too, and everywhere indivisible. Air. Languages over the loudspeaker interrupt one another, repeating, reiterating, arguing then…how an aeroplane traces the arch of the sky, is traced from land to Land in an arch, across the Ocean, then further: they’re lower now, at an elevation incomprehensible now. Pilot speaks garble now. Speed. Height now. Velocity. Over. Local Time now. Temperature. What.