《Challenger》作者： - Robert Reed【EPUB】

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The Challenger by Robert Reed TO SOME PEOPLE, LIFE IS BUT A GAME TODAY, AT LEAST, IT'S ONE WE HAVE AN EVEN CHANCE OF WINNING. BUT NOT FOR LONG... * * * * This old man's sitting, just sitting, out in the mall. don't know why I notice him. Maybe it's his face, which is too flat and simple and dead-looking. But _they_ aren't supposed to look that way anymore. And that's why I mean to walk past him. Except then it occurs to me that maybe that's how I'm supposed to think. I'm supposed to look at him and tell myself that it's just another hundred-year-old turd with a yellow shopping bag and cotton trousers half again too big, and the fact that he's bald and pasty and looks like the blood hasn't hit the brain in years is just an act. A trick. That's what I'm thinking when I make my approach, plopping down next to him on that hard mall bench. Asking him flat out, "Hi, and how are you today?" He waits for a fat second, as if he didn't hear me. Then he gives this quick sideways glance and says, "Lousy. That's how I am." "Too bad," I say. Watching his eyes, his mouth. Through cheap white teeth, he says, "I'm not, and go away." "I didn't say you were," I tell him, thinking that he's awfully sharp for an old turd. "I just need to sit for a minute. Is that all right?" "Fine," he says. So