经典科幻文学:《 再见 多谢你们的鱼》第2章1

Rob McKeena was a miserable bastard and he knew it because he’d had a lot of people point it out to him over the years and he saw no reason to disagree with them except the obvious one which was that he liked disagreeing with people, particularly people he disliked, which included, at the last count, everyone.
He heaved a sigh and shoved down a gear.
The hill was beginning to steepen and his lorry was heavy with Danish thermostatic radiator controls.
It wasn’t that he was naturally predisposed to be so surly, at least he hoped not. It was just the rain which got him down, always the rain.
It was raining now, just for a change.
It was a particular type of rain he particularly disliked, particularly when he was driving. He had a number for it. It was rain type 17.
He had read somewhere that the Eskimos had over two hundred different words for snow, without which their conversation would probably have got very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin snow and thick snow, light snow and heavy snow, sludgy snow, brittle snow, snow that came in flurries, snow that came in drifts, snow that came in on the bottom of your neighbour’s boots all over your nice clean igloo floor, the snows of winter, the snows of spring, the snows you remember from your childhood that were so much better than any of your modern snow, fine snow, feathery snow, hill snow, valley snow, snow that falls in the morning, snow that falls at night, snow that falls all of a sudden just when you were going out fishing, and snow that despite all your efforts to train them, the huskies have pissed on.
Rob McKeena had two hundred and thirty-one different types of rain entered in his little book, and he didn’t like any of them. He shifted down another gear and the lorry heaved its revs up. It grumbled in a comfortable sort of way about all the Danish thermostatic radiator controls it was carrying.
Since he had left Denmark the previous afternoon, he had been through types 33 (light pricking drizzle which made the roads slippery), 39 (heavy spotting), 47 to 51 (vertical light drizzle through to sharply slanting light to moderate drizzle freshening), 87 and 88 (two finely distinguished varieties of vertical torrential downpour), 100 (post-downpour squalling, cold), all the seastorm types between 192 and 213 at once, 123, 124, 126, 127 (mild and intermediate cold gusting, regular and syncopated cab-drumming), 11 (breezy droplets), and now his least favourite of all, 17.
Rain type 17 was a dirty blatter battering against his windscreen so hard that it didn’t make much odds whether he had his wipers on or off.
He tested this theory by turning them off briefly, but as it turned out the visibility did get quite a lot worse. It just failed to get better again when he turned them back on.
In fact one of the wiper blades began to flap off.
Swish swish swish flop swish flop swish swish flop swish flop swish flop flop flop scrape.

罗勃.麦克基纳是一个可怜的混蛋，他知道这一事实是因为这么多年来一直有不少人不停地向他指出这一点，而他发现自己没有理由反驳。除了一条理由，就是他非常喜欢反驳他人，特别是他不喜欢的人——这至少包括了所有人。
他叹了口气，把车子降了一档。
山路变得陡峭了，而他的卡车装满了丹麦的散热器恒温控制仪。
他并非天生就这样臭脾气——至少他希望自己不是这样的人。这全都得怪那些让他心情抑郁的雨，总是雨的错。
而现在，雨就在下着，只是为了有所变化。
这是一种特别的雨，这种雨他特别不喜欢，特别是在开车的时候。他对这种雨有个编号，17号雨。
他在某个地方读到过，爱斯基摩人有两百多个词来形容雪，如果不是这样的话，他们平时的交谈可能就会相当无聊了。因此他们能够区别薄的雪跟厚的雪，小的雪跟大的雪，硬的雪，松的雪，吹过来的雪，飘过来的雪，从邻居的靴子底部蹭满了你干净整洁的屋子圆顶的雪，冬天的雪，春天的雪，你童年记忆中的此后再也无雪可比的雪，轻柔的雪，毛状的雪，山上的雪，谷里的雪，早晨下的雪，晚上下的雪，在你打算出外钓鱼时不期而至的雪，以及不管你怎样努力训练，雪橇狗们依然会在上面撒尿的雪。
在罗勃.麦克基纳的小词典里收录了两百三十一个不同类型的雨，没有一种雨是他喜欢的。他又降了一档，让卡车的引擎加快转速。卡车用轰鸣声来抱怨那些装在身上的丹麦散热器恒温控制仪。
自从昨天下午他从丹麦启程以来，他经历了33号雨（让道路湿润的毛毛细雨），39号雨（雨点硕大的雨），47到51号雨（从垂直下落的细雨到倾斜下落的小到中雨），87和88号雨（两种有细微差别的倾盆大雨），100号雨（倾盆大雨的末期，夹杂着寒风），同时经历从192到213号之间所有的海上暴风雨类型，123号雨，124号雨，126号雨，127号雨（伴随着中等规模的寒风以及规律的呼啸声），11号雨（轻快的小雨滴），以及现在经历的，他最憎恶的雨，17号雨。
17号雨不停地用肮脏的雨滴猛烈地敲打着他的挡风玻璃，使得他的雨刷根本没有什么用。
他为了验证以上的理论，就暂时把雨刷关上，结果能见度急剧下降。当他重新开启雨刷时，情况已经不可挽回了。
事实上，雨刷的其中一个刮水片已经快要被PIA飞了。
嗖嗖嗖啪嗖啪嗖嗖啪嗖啪嗖啪啪啪吱嘠——