經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》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.

羅勃.麥克基納是一個可憐的混蛋，他知道這一事實是因爲這麼多年來一直有不少人不停地向他指出這一點，而他發現自己沒有理由反駁。除了一條理由，就是他非常喜歡反駁他人，特別是他不喜歡的人——這至少包括了所有人。
他嘆了口氣，把車子降了一檔。
山路變得陡峭了，而他的卡車裝滿了丹麥的散熱器恆溫控制儀。
他並非天生就這樣臭脾氣——至少他希望自己不是這樣的人。這全都得怪那些讓他心情抑鬱的雨，總是雨的錯。
而現在，雨就在下着，只是爲了有所變化。
這是一種特別的雨，這種雨他特別不喜歡，特別是在開車的時候。他對這種雨有個編號，17號雨。
他在某個地方讀到過，愛斯基摩人有兩百多個詞來形容雪，如果不是這樣的話，他們平時的交談可能就會相當無聊了。因此他們能夠區別薄的雪跟厚的雪，小的雪跟大的雪，硬的雪，鬆的雪，吹過來的雪，飄過來的雪，從鄰居的靴子底部蹭滿了你乾淨整潔的屋子圓頂的雪，冬天的雪，春天的雪，你童年記憶中的此後再也無雪可比的雪，輕柔的雪，毛狀的雪，山上的雪，谷裏的雪，早晨下的雪，晚上下的雪，在你打算出外釣魚時不期而至的雪，以及不管你怎樣努力訓練，雪橇狗們依然會在上面撒尿的雪。
在羅勃.麥克基納的小詞典裏收錄了兩百三十一個不同類型的雨，沒有一種雨是他喜歡的。他又降了一檔，讓卡車的引擎加快轉速。卡車用轟鳴聲來抱怨那些裝在身上的丹麥散熱器恆溫控制儀。
自從昨天下午他從丹麥啓程以來，他經歷了33號雨（讓道路溼潤的毛毛細雨），39號雨（雨點碩大的雨），47到51號雨（從垂直下落的細雨到傾斜下落的小到中雨），87和88號雨（兩種有細微差別的傾盆大雨），100號雨（傾盆大雨的末期，夾雜着寒風），同時經歷從192到213號之間所有的海上暴風雨類型，123號雨，124號雨，126號雨，127號雨（伴隨着中等規模的寒風以及規律的呼嘯聲），11號雨（輕快的小雨滴），以及現在經歷的，他最憎惡的雨，17號雨。
17號雨不停地用骯髒的雨滴猛烈地敲打着他的擋風玻璃，使得他的雨刷根本沒有什麼用。
他爲了驗證以上的理論，就暫時把雨刷關上，結果能見度急劇下降。當他重新開啓雨刷時，情況已經不可挽回了。
事實上，雨刷的其中一個刮水片已經快要被PIA飛了。
嗖嗖嗖啪嗖啪嗖嗖啪嗖啪嗖啪啪啪吱嘠——