【书摘】The Chalk Man, C. J. Tudor
严格意义上读的第一本thriller fiction. 树林里被肢解的女孩；犯下最不可饶恕的罪行的牧师；藏匿女孩头颅的男孩；用最痛苦的爱至死不渝深爱女孩的英文老师；被保守派控诉威胁的人工流产医生；兄长意外死亡后仿佛宿命般从善滑向恶最终变成了他哥哥的翻版抑或影子的男孩；目睹牧师父亲的罪行一辈子都不曾饶恕父亲的女孩；以私生子的身份渴望从未存在过的父爱却险些被牧师人性之恶吞噬的女孩；当子辈们深陷童年杀人案件的梦魇多年以后依旧无法忘却，父辈们却如同被诅咒一般，未入老年却老年痴呆的他们一点点忘了这个小镇的伤痕。
thriller fiction 真的是很有意思的阅读体验，twisting plots, hints and foreshadows.
摘抄：
If our world was a snow globe, it was the day some casual god came along, shook it hard and set it back down again. Even when the foam and flakes had settled, things weren’t the way they were before. Not exactly. They might have looked the same through the glass but, on the inside, everything was different.
Often, what comes with age is not wisdom but intolerance.
Principles are nice things. If you can afford them. I like to think I am a principled man, but then, most men do. The fact is, we all have a price, we all have buttons that can be pressed to make us do things that are not entirely honorable. Principles do not pay the mortgage, or clear our debts. Principles are actually pretty useless currency in the daily grind of life. A principled man is generally a man who has everything he wants, or absolutely nothing to lose.
The blue sky had faded to a murky gray. Clouds shifted restlessly, like they were getting impatient for a really big downpour.
You expected old people to die. They even smelled a bit like they were already half dead. Kind of musty and stale. Death happened to other people, not kids like us, not people we knew. Death was abstract and distant.
Friends, you can cut loose. Family, you never lose. They’re always there, in the background, screwing with your mind.
I wonder if saints have to live completely blameless lives or if you can live like a sinner then just perform a few miracles and be sainted anyway? That seems to be the way with religion. Murder, rape, kill and maim, but all will be forgiven as long as you repent. Never seemed entirely fair to me.
I braced myself for a biting, sarcastic reply. Instead, she suddenly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. So tight, it didn’t really feel like a hug, more like a death grip; like I was the last raft on a dark and stormy ocean. I let her hold on. I breathed in the smell of her knotted curls. Vanilla and chewing gum. I felt the rise and fall of her chest. The small buds of her breasts through her baggy jumper. I wished that we could stay like that forever. That she wouldn’t ever tear herself away.
Maybe it’s time to take a ride all the way back down good old memory lane. Except, this is not a sun-dappled stroll along a path of fond recollections. This particular route is dark, overgrown with tangled knots of lies and secrets, and full of hidden potholes.
The leaves curled and crinkled and eventually lost their fragile grip on the trees. A feeling of withering and dying seemed to pervade everything. Nothing felt fresh or colorful or innocent anymore. Like the whole town had been temporarily suspended in its own dusty time capsule.
Ideas, when you’re a kid, are a bit like seeds scattered in the wind. Some don’t make it; they get carried away on the breeze, forgotten about and never mentioned again. Others take root. They dig their way down, they grow and they spread.
Beneath the veneer of adulthood, beneath the layers of experience we accrue as the years march stoically onward, we are all still children, with scraped knees and snotty noses, who need our parents…and our friends.
For who are we if not the sum of our experiences, the things that we gather and collect in life? Once you strip those away we become just a mass of flesh, bone and blood vessels.
No. None of us is ever really prepared for death. For something so finite. As human beings, we’re used to being able to control our lives. To extend them, to an extent. But death brooks no argument. No final plea. No appeal. Death is death, and he holds all the cards. Even if you cheat him once, he won’t let you call his bluff a second time.
