《在地图结束的地方》

#小说

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笔记

这个城市不比他们这些年流浪过的其他地方差。即使他明白这次旅行的意义，但想到一个人选择在从来没有到过的地方度过残余不多的人生，他仍然会很感伤。狗绝对不会犯这样的错误。

It smelled no worse than any other city they'd camped in over the years, but even though he understood the purpose of the trip, it grieved him to think that a man could choose to spend his last moments on earth in a place he’d never been to before. A dog would never commit such a blunder.

现在，骨头先生身在其中，他不明白自己的老主人到底哪儿出了问题，他为什么要费尽力气去抵制美好生活的诱惑。也许这地方并不是十全十美，但却有许多值得推荐的地方。一旦你习惯了这种体制的结构，整天被拴上绳子上看起来都不那么糟糕了。当你在哪儿待了两个半月之后，你甚至都不再在意自己的名字是斯巴齐。

Now that Mr. Bones was on the inside, he wondered where his old master had gone wrong and why he had worked so hard to spurn the trappings of the good life. It might not have been perfect in this place, but it had a lot to recommend it, and once you got used to the mechanics of the system, it no longer seemed so important that you were tethered to a wire all day. By the time you had been there for two and a half months, you even stopped caring that your name was Sparky.

这个游戏叫躲车，神圣，历史悠久，每一个老家伙都能在其中夺回年轻时的荣耀。这游戏很有趣，很爽快，挑战每一条狗的运动技巧。迅速横穿马路，看你是否能避开撞过来的汽车。谁能穿越马路的次数越多，谁的冠军荣誉就显得越伟大。当然，迟早有一次，那件事会发生。很少有玩躲车游戏的狗不会输在最后一个回合上。但这也是这个特殊游戏最美妙的地方。当你输掉的那一刻，你就赢了。

就这样，在弗吉尼亚那个灿烂的冬日早晨，骨头先生，a.k.a.斯巴达克斯，已故诗人威利·基·圣诞的老伙伴，出发前去证明他才是狗群当中的冠军。从高速公路东边的草地上走出来，他等着车流的一个空隙，之后，他开始奔跑。尽管是如此虚弱，他的腿上仍然保留了些许弹跳的能力。当他开始狂奔时，他感到几个月以来从没像这样强壮而快乐过。他跑向噪音，跑向光，跑向四面八方汹涌而来的怒目和咒骂。
运气好的话，用不了等白天结束，他就会和威利在一起。

It was called dodge-the-car, and it was a venerable, time-honored sport that allowed every old-timer to recapture the glories of his youth. It was fun, it was invigorating, it was a challenge to every dog’s athletic skills. Just run across the road and see if you could avoid being hit. The more times you were able to do it, the greater the champion you were. Sooner or later, of course, the odds were bound to catch up with you, and few dogs had ever played dodge-the-car without losing on their last turn. But that was the beauty of this particular game. The moment you lost, you won.

And so it happened, on that resplendent winter morning in Virginia, that Mr. Bones, a.k.a. Sparkatus, sidekick of the late poet Willy G. Christmas, set out to prove that he was a champion among dogs. Stepping off the grass onto the eastbound shoulder of the highway, he waited for a break in the traffic, and then he began to run. Weak as he was, there was still some spring left in his legs, and once he hit his stride, he felt stronger and happier than he had felt in months. He ran toward the noise, toward the light, toward the glare and the roar that were rushing in on him from all directions.
With any luck, he would be with Willy before the day was out.