【机翻/科幻】在世界末日做广告 Keffy R.M. Kehrli [APEX杂志]
Five years after her husband died, two years after she moved to a cabin in Montana, and six months after the world ended, Marie opened her curtains to discover her front garden overrun with roving, stumbling advertisements. Marie hadn’t seen one since she’d sold her condo and moved out to her isolated cabin. She shuddered.
丈夫去世五年后，玛丽搬到了蒙大拿州的一座小屋，世界末日过去六个月后，她拉开窗帘，发现自家前花园里到处都是漫无目的、跌跌撞撞的广告。自从卖掉自己的公寓搬进这座与世隔绝的小屋后，玛丽就再也没有见过广告了。她不禁打了个寒战。
There were at least twenty of the ads, and for all it seemed they were doing their damndest to step lightly, her red and yellow tulips were completely trampled.Marie had stubbornly continued to cultivate those flowers despite the certainty that she ought to be using the gardening space, and the captured rainwater, to grow food. Not that it mattered what she’d been growing there. It was all mud now.
至少有二十个广告，尽管他们似乎尽了最大努力，但她的红色和黄色的郁金香还是被完全践踏了。玛丽固执地继续种植这些花，尽管她应该用花园的空间和收集的雨水来种植食物。并不是说她在那里种植的东西有什么关系。现在都是泥了
The ad nearest her window looked quite a bit like a tall, lanky teenager. It moved like one as well, and might have fooled her except that its forehead was stuck in price scrolling mode. Faintly glowing red letters crawled across its forehead from right to left.
离她窗户最近的广告看起来很像一个又高又瘦的青少年。它也像一个青少年一样移动，如果不是它的前额卡在价格滚动模式上，它可能已经骗过她了。微微发红的字母从右到左爬过它的前额。
TOILET PAPER…2 FOR 1 SALE…RECYCLED….
卫生纸……买二送一……可回收利用……
Marie could only recognize the daffodil bed by memory. She snapped the curtains shut.
玛丽只能凭记忆认出水仙花床，她拉上了窗帘。
She wrapped a floral print terrycloth robe around herself and hustled from her sparsely furnished bedroom into the kitchen. She was relieved to see the fences she’d put up to keep the deer out of her vegetable garden, while never quite successful, had at least managed to keep her vegetables safe from the ads.
她裹上一件印花毛巾浴袍，匆匆离开布置简单的卧室，走进厨房。看到自己为防止鹿进入自家菜园而竖起的篱笆（虽然不太成功），她松了一口气，因为这些篱笆至少让她的蔬菜免受广告牌的侵扰。
That, of course, would not bring back her flowers.
当然，这不会把她的花带回来。
She glowered at the ads through her kitchen window and filled a glass from the pitcher of well water she kept by the sink. She fumbled open the Tuesday box on her medication canister. Like most mornings, she was thankful that she had filled her prescriptions prior to the end; otherwise she would have none by now.
她透过厨房的窗户怒视着广告，从水槽旁的水罐里倒了一杯水。她摸索着打开药盒上的星期二药盒。像大多数早晨一样，她很感激自己在最后期限前填满了处方药；否则现在她连药都没有了。
She would have to go to the garden, and although the advertisements were designed to be perfectly harmless, Marie found she was frightened by the way they lurched over the ground. She suspected this was due to the uncomfortable way their silent progress reminded her of zombie films.
她不得不去花园，虽然广告的设计是完全无害的，但玛丽发现她被它们在地面上的颠簸吓坏了。她怀疑这是由于它们无声地前进让她想起了僵尸电影，这让她感到不舒服。
Robert would have been fascinated. A year or so before his death, an advertisement had come up to their door. In those days, the ads had acted more like people than those that now plagued her gardens, and it had stood obediently on the front step until they’d opened the door.
罗伯特会着迷的。在他去世前一年左右，一个广告出现在他们家门口。在那个时代，广告更像人，而不是现在困扰她花园的那些东西，它顺从地站在前门台阶上，直到他们打开门。
Marie had argued that it was better to leave the door shut, because if an advertisement left without delivering its pitch, it would learn not to come back to the house. The way she figured it, and the way several of her favorite independent video bloggers figured it, listening to the ads was like feeding a stray cat.
玛丽争辩说，最好把门关上，因为如果一则广告没有完成推销就离开了，它会学着不再回到这所房子。按照她的想法，以及她最喜欢的几个独立视频博客作者的想法，听广告就像喂流浪猫一样。
Robert did not seem to be overly concerned that they would never get rid of the ads. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “They’ll last maybe another few years at the most, and then the companies will all move onto something that costs less. Right now, they’re cheaper than sending employees door-to-door.” He opened the door, despite Marie’s protestations.
罗伯特似乎并不担心他们永远摆脱不了这些广告。“别傻了，”他说，“它们最多再持续几年，然后这些公司就会转向成本更低的东西。现在，它们比雇人挨家挨户送便宜。”他打开门，不顾玛丽的抗议。
“Hello,” the advertisement said, hands clasped before it. “I was wondering if you had a few moments to talk about your retirement?”
“你好，”广告说，双手合十，“我想知道你是否有时间谈谈你的退休生活？”
Marie just shook her head and turned back into the house. She busied herself with embroidery, although she still kept an eye on Robert to be sure he wasn’t buying anything. No matter how clever her Robert thought the ads were, she did not want to encourage the companies to make more of them.
玛丽只是摇了摇头，转身进屋了。她忙着刺绣，虽然她仍然盯着罗伯特，确保他不会买任何东西。不管她的罗伯特认为这些广告有多聪明，她都不想鼓励公司制作更多的广告。
After a few minutes of animated conversation, the ad left and Robert came into the dining room. He asked, “Have you ever wondered how sentient they are?”
几分钟后，广告离开了，罗伯特走进了餐厅。他问道：“你有没有想过它们有多聪明？”
Marie shook her head. She didn’t like the ads, and the best emotion she could muster toward them was similar to the way she felt about mosquitoes. Other people thought they served a purpose; she didn’t, and it was not worth the argument.
玛丽摇了摇头。她不喜欢这些广告，她对这些广告最好的情绪就像她对蚊子的感觉一样。其他人认为它们是有用的；她不这么认为，而且不值得为此争论。
It became apparent that Robert was actually waiting for her answer, and he sat down heavily in one of the other dining room chairs. Marie finished a particularly difficult stitch. “They aren’t. They just recognize patterns.”
显然，罗伯特实际上在等她的回答，他重重地坐在另一把餐椅上。玛丽缝完了一针特别难缝的线。“它们不是，它们只是识别模式。”
“Yes, but so do we,” Robert said. He put both hands on the table and sat up straighter. “How close are they to sentience? They’re so much more sophisticated than a recorded ad. They’re art.”
“是的，但我们也一样，”罗伯特说。他把两只手放在桌子上，坐得更直了。“它们有多接近意识？它们比记录广告复杂得多。它们是艺术。”
A few more stitches. Marie laughed. “Art? They’re advertisements, not art. It can’t be art if it’s just meant to sell things.”
再缝几针。玛丽笑了。“艺术？它们是广告，不是艺术。如果只是为了卖东西，就不能是艺术。”
Robert had looked thoughtful. He’d leaned over the table slowly, put his chin in his hands and looked at her. “And yet you like Mucha prints, and those were all selling something,” He’d said.
罗伯特看起来若有所思。他慢慢地靠在桌子上，双手托着下巴，看着她。“但你喜欢穆夏的印刷品，而那些都是卖东西的，”他说。
If Robert were still alive, and the world had not ended, Marie supposed he would have gone out the front door and immersed himself in a sea of advertising conversation. As it was, she faced the corporate-orphaned menace alone with an old broom and her largest hammer.
如果罗伯特还活着，世界还没有毁灭，玛丽猜想他会从前门出去，投身于广告谈话的汪洋大海中。但事实是，她独自一人，拿着一把旧扫帚和一把最大的锤子，面对着被公司遗弃的威胁。
She had hoped they would simply wander off on their own, but after watching through the window for a few hours, she determined they knew where she was.Marie suspected her RF chip was still broadcasting her ID number. She and Robert had bought them before they truly understood how much advertising money had subsidized the price.
她本以为它们会自己走开，但透过窗户观察了几个小时后，她确定它们知道她在哪里。玛丽怀疑她的射频芯片仍在广播她的身份号码。她和罗伯特在真正了解有多少广告资金补贴了价格之前就买下了它们。
She stood on the threshold of the home she’d purchased with her retirement and the last of Robert’s life insurance pay-off, ready to defend it against even the most pernicious of sales pitches.
她站在她用退休金和罗伯特的最后一笔人寿保险费购买的房子的门槛上，准备捍卫它，甚至抵御最恶毒的销售宣传。
Marie hefted the hammer over her head and held the broom out like a lance. At least thirty ads were in the front garden now, and more stumbled up the gravel road to her home.
玛丽把锤子举过头顶，把扫帚像长矛一样举着。现在前花园里至少有三十个广告，还有更多的广告在鹅卵石路上摇摇晃晃地来到她家。
“Get off my property!” Her voice only shook a little.“
滚出我的地盘！”她的声音只有一点颤抖。
The ads turned to face her. They were designed to understand when they were told to leave. This was meant to limit the annoyance factor. Even in the best of times, the command had rarely worked. Forehead screens changed from flesh colors to scrolling text. The subtlety had gone out of advertising entirely. She wondered if that was a function of being away from human contact for months on end, or if she was just surrounded by a crowd of defectives.
广告转向面对她。它们被设计成在被告知离开时能够理解。这是为了限制恼人的因素。即使在最好的时候，这个命令也很少奏效。额头屏幕从肉色变成了滚动文字。广告完全失去了微妙性。她不知道这是连续几个月远离人类接触的功能，还是她只是被一群有缺陷的人包围着。
“Go away!”
“走开！”
The ads crowded in closer, becoming an ocean of words and prices and mark-downs, factory blow-outs and Email addresses for the next get-rich-quick scheme, male enhancement drug names, tag lines for movie sequels that shouldn’t exist, and cash advance loan shark promises.
广告挤得更近了，成为一片文字、价格和折扣的海洋，工厂甩卖和下一个快速致富计划的电子邮件地址，男性增强药物名称，不应该存在的电影续集的标语，以及高利贷的现金提前贷款承诺。
“Marie…it’s been so long.”
“玛丽……好久不见。”
At the corner of her cabin, just behind her favorite rhododendron, she saw a figure she recognized immediately and might have known by voice alone.
在她小屋的拐角处，就在她最喜欢的杜鹃花后面，她看到一个身影，她立刻就认出来了，也许只凭声音就能认出来。
Robert.
罗伯特。
Robert as he’d looked when they’d first met, back in the twentieth century, when they had both been younger and he had been alive. He—it, the ad, wore a very simple black two-piece suit, and held a hat under its arm. It looked like the suit Robert had worn to their wedding, but the shoes were different, as though the advertisement had not fully accessed the public files on their marriage.
罗伯特就像他们第一次见面时一样，回到了二十世纪，那时他们都还年轻，他还活着。它——它，这个广告，穿着一套非常简单的黑色两件套西装，胳膊下夹着一顶帽子。它看起来就像罗伯特在他们婚礼上穿的西装，但鞋子不同，好像这个广告没有完全访问他们的婚姻的公共文件。
Through the first three years after his death, Marie had never grown used to the way the ads shifted to Robert’s form. Now the image spread out like ripples on a pool, the skin of the ads universally deepening almost to a shade of olive, hair lengthening and straightening and taking on that blue-black sheen she’d fallen in love with.
在他去世后的头三年里，玛丽从未习惯广告的转变，变成了罗伯特的形象。现在，广告的图像像池塘里的涟漪一样蔓延开来，广告的肤色普遍加深，几乎变成了橄榄色，头发变长，变直，呈现出她所热爱的蓝黑色光泽。
The forward press of ads stopped just outside of her reach, processing the shift from advertising bot to facsimile of her husband. The ads stopped broadcasting on their foreheads, all except for the broken one, which was now fidgeting from one foot to the other in a way that would have tricked Marie into thinking it was actually human if the sale on toilet paper hadn’t been scrolling from one temple to the other.
前方的广告停止在她伸手可及的地方，处理着从广告机器人到她丈夫的传真的转变。广告不再在他们额头上播放，除了那个坏掉的，它现在正不安地从一只脚换到另一只脚，如果厕纸的销售没有从一个额头滚动到另一个额头的话，玛丽会以为它真的是人类。
They were all malfunctioning.
它们都失灵了。
“Have you been waiting?” one of the Ad-Roberts in front of Marie said. She poked it in the chest with her broom handle, and it didn’t seem to mind.
“你一直在等吗？”站在玛丽面前的一个叫阿德·罗伯茨的人说。她用扫帚柄戳了戳它的胸口，它似乎并不介意。
Another ad said, “Have you missed me?”
另一则广告说：“你想我了吗？”
“Lonely out here,” said a third.
“这里很孤独，”第三个人说。
Marie picked up her hammer and slowly, careful to avoid tripping on the door frame, backed into her house.
玛丽拿起她的锤子，慢慢地，小心翼翼地避免在门框上绊倒，退回到她的房子里。
She shut the door.
她关上了门。
The first time Marie had ever seen an ad take on the appearance of Robert had been only a few weeks after the funeral. She had opened the door one morning to find Robert standing just outside. There was a split second when she found herself wondering if she’d imagined the past few weeks. Then she realized she was looking at an ad. Marie thought about Robert rotting in the ground, dead and alone.
玛丽第一次看到罗伯特的广告是在葬礼后的几个星期。一天早上，她打开门，发现罗伯特就站在门外。有那么一瞬间，她怀疑自己是否想象出了过去几周的事情。然后她意识到她看到的是一个广告。玛丽想到罗伯特已经腐烂在地里，死了，孤独地死去。
The ads were not meant to use the likenesses of the deceased. What they could do was almost as bad, but far less illegal—taking those likenesses and shifting them ever so slightly until the ad looked familiar, but not sufficiently to be recognized.
这些广告原本并不打算使用逝者的肖像。他们所能做的几乎同样糟糕，但远没有那么非法——使用这些肖像，并略微改变它们，直到广告看起来很熟悉，但不足以被认出。
Whether it was an act or not, the ad looked just as surprised as she was. Its eyes opened wide as it accessed her file and, for an instant, it looked like Robert had when he realized he’d said something he shouldn’t have. The ad opened its mouth as if to speak, but Marie hadn’t wanted to know what it was about to say.She’d slammed the door shut.
不管这是否是一个行为，广告看起来和她一样惊讶。当它访问她的文件时，它的眼睛睁得大大的，一瞬间，它看起来就像罗伯特意识到自己说了不该说的话时一样。广告张开嘴，好像要说什么，但玛丽不想知道它要说什么。她砰地一声关上了门。
It turned out later that the malfunction had been semi-common. Marie could have gotten in on a class action lawsuit but, instead, she’d packed up and sold the condo. She’d moved to the cabin shortly afterward, wanting a place that wouldn’t remind her of Robert, who had always loved cities.
后来发现，这种故障并不罕见。玛丽本可以提起集体诉讼，但她没有，而是打包出售了公寓。不久后，她搬到了小木屋，想要一个不会让她想起罗伯特的地方，因为罗伯特一直喜欢城市。
All the ads except for one shifted back to their default appearances after Marie returned indoors, but they didn’t go away. She kept her shades down and tried to ignore the tromp-tromp-tromping noises of footsteps outside her house.
所有的广告，除了一个，在玛丽回到室内后，都恢复了默认的显示方式，但它们并没有消失。她拉下了窗帘，试图忽略外面房子外传来的咚咚咚的脚步声。
The gardens had seen better days.
这些花园曾经有过更好的日子。
The most curious thing was that no matter how content she had been with her hermit’s life before, now the ads were outside her door she missed the sound of Robert’s voice. She wished she could hear it again, as long as it wasn’t a haphazard lead-in to a sales pitch.
最奇怪的是，无论她以前多么满足于隐士的生活，现在广告就在她家门口，她想念罗伯特的声音。她希望她能再听到他的声音，只要它不是推销的随意开场白。
Marie sat alone on these mornings, extremely alone, now she had the rustling sounds of the ads to remind her.
玛丽在这些早晨独自坐着，非常孤独，现在她有了广告的沙沙声来提醒她。
That was why, on one fine Wednesday afternoon in mid-April, Marie invited an advertisement in the guise of her dead husband inside for lunch.
这就是为什么，在四月中旬一个晴朗的星期三下午，玛丽邀请一个以她已故丈夫为伪装的广告来吃午饭。
They sat together at a white table with a blue checkered tablecloth and a plate of tiny sandwiches inside Marie’s small kitchen. Ad-Robert had attempted to pull her chair out for her, but she would not allow it. She had placed her hammer under her seat before letting the ad in. Even though she didn’t think it was dangerous, Marie thought it best to be prepared. Once they were seated, she poured mint tea for them both.
在玛丽的小厨房里，他们坐在一张铺着蓝色格子桌布的白色桌子上，面前摆着一盘小三明治。罗伯特试图帮她拉出椅子，但她没有同意。在让罗伯特进来之前，她把自己的锤子放在了座位下面。虽然玛丽不认为这很危险，但她认为最好还是做好准备。他们坐下来后，玛丽给他们俩倒上薄荷茶。
Marie had cultivated the mint herself, of course.
当然，玛丽自己种植了薄荷。
The ad that looked like Robert smiled dumbly at Marie, and the sunlight that filtered into the room lanced brightly across faintly silvered hair. When it smiled,crow’s feet spread from the crinkled skin around its eyes. Try as the ad might,however, the months without upkeep had so eroded its ability to keep up with its reference recordings of Robert’s inimitable gestures that the resulting attempt looked like a badly choreographed farce.
那个广告看起来就像罗伯特对着玛丽傻笑，阳光照射进房间，照亮了玛丽略带银色的头发。当它微笑时，眼角的鱼尾纹从它眼睛周围皱巴巴的皮肤中扩散开来。然而，尽管广告试图这样做，但几个月没有维护已经侵蚀了它跟上罗伯特独一无二手势的参考记录的能力，因此产生的尝试看起来像是一场编排糟糕的闹剧。
Marie sipped her tea, watching the ad in silence. It had asked her a leading question, as they’d walked through the front room: something about stock options, which would never draw Marie’s interest, even if stocks or money had meaning anymore. Ads were designed not to speak again until the thread of conversation was taken up by a human. She looked out the kitchen window. Ads still filled the back yard. She wondered if they were sharing her location, like bees dancing to show each other the path to fresh flowers.The ads wandered back and forth through what was left of the pansies.
玛丽喝着茶，静静地看着广告。他们在客厅里走来走去时，广告向她提出了一个引导性问题：关于股票期权，即使股票或金钱还有意义，这也不会引起玛丽的兴趣。广告的设计是，在谈话的线索被人类接起之前，不再说话。她看着厨房的窗户。广告仍然填满了后院。她不知道它们是否在分享她的位置，就像蜜蜂通过跳舞向彼此展示通往新鲜花朵的路一样。广告在剩下的紫罗兰中徘徊。
Marie sighed, and Ad-Robert cocked its head.
玛丽叹了口气，阿德-罗伯特歪了歪头。
Either the conversation lag had been too much for its memory banks, or it parsed the sigh as an answer.
要么是因为它的记忆库中的对话延迟太多，要么是因为它把叹气当成了答案。
The ad asked, “I mean, I don’t mean to pry, dear…but you have thought about retirement, haven’t you?”
这则广告问道：“我的意思是，我不想打听，亲爱的……但你考虑过退休，不是吗？”
The ad sounded like Robert and, at the same time, sounded like the ad that had spoken to Robert six years before. Marie thought of the hammer under her chair and had to wait to respond because of the sudden thickness in her throat. “Of course I have.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but at the same time, the question was moot.
广告听起来像罗伯特，同时听起来像六年前对罗伯特说话的广告。玛丽想到了椅子下面的锤子，因为喉咙突然变粗了，她不得不等一会儿再回答。“我当然有。”这不是一个彻头彻尾的谎言，但与此同时，这个问题已经无关紧要了。
Ad-Robert looked down at its tea but did not drink. It held the cup a few inches above the table and let it steam out into the air. “You ought to be buying biotech. I can help you find the right companies.”
罗伯特低头看着他的茶，但没有喝。他把杯子举到离桌子几英寸的地方，让蒸汽散到空气中。“你应该去买生物技术股。我可以帮你找到合适的公司。
”Marie said, “I’m sure they’re not in business anymore.”
玛丽说，“我敢肯定他们不再做生意了。”
The ad tried to do one of Robert’s dismissive hand waves, but its wrist motors jerked and the effect was lost. The ad didn’t seem to notice. “Of course they’re still in business!” Its eyes focused on the space above Marie’s left shoulder, as it tried to connect to the Net. Marie was fairly certain that, with the exception of any identification chips she may have, there had never been a wireless connection in a twenty mile radius.
广告试图模仿罗伯特不屑一顾的手势，但它的腕部马达失灵了，效果大打折扣。广告似乎没有注意到，“他们当然还在营业！”它的目光聚焦在玛丽左肩上方的空间，试图连接网络。玛丽相当肯定，除了她可能有的识别芯片，二十英里范围内从未有过无线连接。
Marie finished her cup of tea and maneuvered the conversation into a realm she cared for a bit more than imaginary finances. She poured more tea and dumped a spoonful of honey into it. “I’ve been thinking about planting corn soon, but it’s hard to get to a flat patch of ground that isn’t constantly underfoot these days.”She’d heard rumors that some of the ads were able to carry on regular conversations if prompted properly. A few companies had discovered their ads had been held hostage by lonely people for weeks or months on end.
玛丽喝完了杯里的茶，把谈话引向一个她更感兴趣的话题，而不是虚拟财务。她又倒了一杯茶，往里面放了一勺蜂蜜。“我一直想尽快种上玉米，但如今很难找到一块没有不断踩踏的平地。”她听说有传言说，如果提示得当，有些广告可以进行正常的对话。一些公司发现，他们的广告被孤独的人连续数周或数月扣押。
Ad-Robert didn’t move, frozen with what would have been confusion if it had been human.
罗伯特没有动，如果它是人类，它会被困惑所冻结。
Marie waited, but the hope she had for a decent conversationalist faded when Ad-Robert only asked, “So, about your retirement?”
玛丽等待着，但当罗伯特只是问“那么，关于你的退休？”时，她对一个像样的谈话者的希望破灭了。
Marie had tried to look for survivors a week after the satellite television signals had gone out. She’d loaded up her old pickup truck with water, emergency bandages, and even a few fall vegetables to share with her neighbors.
卫星电视信号消失一周后，玛丽试图寻找幸存者。她把旧皮卡车装满水、急救绷带，甚至还有一些秋季蔬菜，与她的邻居分享。
One eye on the road and the other on the gas gauge, she made her way down the mountain, looking for turnoffs to the isolated cabins of her neighbors. She hadn’t known them well before everything went to shit, but she figured now was a good time to make an exception. It was a beautiful, quiet day. She pulled onto the highway, and no cars passed her in either direction. All the cabins were empty. This confused Marie, since she hadn’t taken the people who lived in them to be the sort who would run for civilization at the first sign of trouble. She supposed she had been wrong about them, for whatever that mattered. Marie filled the back of her pickup truck with canned and dried food from their pantries and tried to ignore the smells that emanated from their closed refrigerators.
她一只眼盯着路面，另一只眼盯着油表，沿着山道行驶，寻找通往邻居那几座孤零零的小屋的岔路。在事情变得一团糟之前，她跟邻居们并不是很熟，但她觉得现在可以破个例了。今天天气晴朗，非常安静。她驶上公路，前后都没有车辆经过。所有的小屋都是空的。这令玛丽很困惑，因为她之前并不认为那些住在小屋里的人会在麻烦初现端倪时就逃向文明世界。她猜自己之前看错他们了，但那也没什么大不了的。玛丽把小货车的后备箱装满了储藏室里的罐头和干粮，努力不去理会从他们关着的冰箱里散发出来的气味。
She only made it halfway down into the valley before the wind shifted to come up out of the south. She gagged, slammed on the brakes of her truck and pulled over onto the shoulder. Even a few miles away, the collective stench of several hundred thousand bodies, rotting sour in the early September heat, was too much for her.
她只开到山谷的一半，风向就变了，从南边吹来。她干呕起来，猛地踩下卡车的刹车，把车停在路肩上。即使是几英里之外，几十万具尸体的集体恶臭，在九月初的酷热中腐烂发酸，也令她难以忍受。
She couldn’t imagine anyone living closer. Reluctantly, she had turned the truck around and headed back to her house.
她无法想象有人住得更近了。她不情愿地调转车头，朝自己的房子开去。
Marie couldn’t destroy the ads. She had trouble even thinking of it because, no matter how wrong their gestures, every ad looked too human.
玛丽无法销毁这些广告。她甚至很难想到这一点，因为不管他们的姿势有多错，每则广告看起来都太人性化了。
The ad she kept indoors at least pretended to listen to her from time to time.She could almost ignore the outdoor ads, except for when she had to pass from her house to the well, from the well to the garden, or from the garden back to her house. She had given up on her makeshift pump system the second or third time the ads had trampled holes into the hose. She’d forgotten how hard it was to carry water from the well to the garden by hand, and it didn’t help that the ads were always underfoot.
室内的广告牌至少会时不时假装听她说话，而室外的广告牌她几乎可以忽略不计，除非她不得不从家里走到水井边，从水井边走到花园里，或者从花园里走回家里。广告牌踩坏了水管的第二次或第三次，她就放弃了自己的临时抽水系统。她已经忘了从水井里用手提水到花园里有多困难，而广告牌总是挡在脚边也于事无补。
“Get out of the way,” she said, exasperated, when the ads stumbled into her few well-worn paths. Even if the ads were not in her garden, it was hard to get enough water to the plants.Every trip with the bucket took twice as long as it should have.
“让开，”当广告出现在她为数不多的几条小路上时，她恼怒地说。即使广告不在她的花园里，也很难给植物提供足够的水分。每次提水都要花上两倍的时间。
In the evenings, she did not embroider as much as she used to. She was too tired, now, and too worried about whether or not she’d be able to keep her food crops alive and healthy enough to give her a harvest that would last the winter.
晚上，她不像以前那样刺绣了。现在她太累了，而且太担心她的粮食作物是否能活下来，是否足够健康，能给她带来足够过冬的收成。
Marie grew used to the indoor ad’s, “Good morning, sweetheart.” It said the same thing every morning, as she passed from her bedroom into the kitchen. The ad always sat in the same chair at the table, in the same position, waiting for her to wake.
玛丽已经习惯了室内广告，“早上好，亲爱的。”每天早上，当她从卧室走到厨房时，它都会说同样的事情。广告总是在桌子上坐在同一张椅子上，在同一个位置上，等着她醒来。
When it became apparent that Marie wasn’t interested in the ad’s sales pitch, it was confused for a long time. It sat and listened, nodding absently to her words in the way Robert had done just before he’d died, when she hadn’t been able to tell if he’d understood or not.
当玛丽显然对广告的推销不感兴趣时，它困惑了很长时间。它坐在那里，漫不经心地听着她的话，就像罗伯特死前那样，她无法确定他是否听懂了。
She remembered how her own grandparents had spoken exclusively about the past in their old age. She’d still been studying for her math degree, and she hadn’t had any time for those stories.
她记得自己的祖父母在年老时只谈论过去。当时她还在攻读数学学位，没有时间听那些故事。
Marie told the ad about other things, about how to know when it was time to pick a pear, about the earth-poison smell of tomato vines and the acid-sharp taste of the fruit.
玛丽告诉了广告其他的事情，关于如何知道什么时候是摘梨子的季节，关于番茄藤的泥土气味和果实的酸酸的味道。
She was trying to explain the particular crumbling feel of good soil and the moist smell of fresh potato when Ad-Robert interrupted.
她正试图解释优质土壤的特别松软感觉和新鲜土豆的湿润气味，这时，罗伯特打断了她。
It was the only time the ad interrupted her. At all other times, it had been perfectly behaved.
这是唯一一次广告打断她。在其他任何时候，广告都表现得很好。
“Have you ever considered your death?” it asked.
“你考虑过死亡吗？”它问道。
Robert had once asked her that. They’d been young, and it had been more a joke than anything else. Marie couldn’t look at Ad-Robert when she answered,so she stared out the window at orange-tinged clouds that hung over the forested mountains around her home.
罗伯特曾经问过她这个问题。他们还年轻，这更像是一个玩笑，而不是其他什么。玛丽回答时不敢看广告-罗伯特，所以她盯着窗外，看着橙色的云彩悬挂在她家周围的森林山脉上。
“Yes,” she said.
“是的，”她说。
She had been planning to go grocery shopping the day the world ended, after she’d weeded the gardens and picked some zucchini. But she’d turned on the news that morning to pick up the one local channel available from her satellite dish.
世界末日那天，她本打算去杂货店购物，在此之前，她已经除过草，摘了一些西葫芦。但那天早上，她打开电视，想通过卫星天线接收当地的一个频道。
Biological agents. Super bug. Nobody on the channel or in any of the borrowed clips they showed could determine if they thought it was terrorism, or just freak random chance. It was a virus, then it was a bacterial infection that antibiotics couldn’t touch. Masked and suited reporters questioned the sobbing,quarantined mothers of sick children. Scientists or doctors postulated that if the illness killed its victims so soon after infection, then it couldn’t spread much farther.
生物制剂。超级细菌。频道上或他们播放的任何借来的片段中都没有人能确定，他们认为这是恐怖主义，还是只是偶然的巧合。这是一种病毒，后来又是一种抗生素无法触及的细菌感染。戴着口罩、穿着防护服的工作人员采访了哭泣的、被隔离的患病儿童的母亲。科学家或医生推测，如果这种疾病在感染后这么快就杀死受害者，那么它就不会传播太远了。
The rebuttal was simple: there was no way to know how long it gestated, and how long it was contagious. The rebuttal sparked more panic, because the man giving it finished by pointing out that the entire human race could already be infected and not know it.
反驳很简单：没有办法知道它潜伏了多长时间，以及它传播了多长时间。反驳引发了更多的恐慌，因为提出反驳的人最后指出，整个人类可能已经被感染了，却对此一无所知。
Marie had turned off the television and sat on her porch in the late summer sunlight for a few hours, and when she’d turned it back on, she hadn’t gotten any reception.
玛丽关掉了电视，坐在门廊上享受夏末的阳光，几个小时后，她重新打开电视，却收不到任何信号。
A day later, the electricity had been cut off.
一天后，电就被切断了。
One morning when she walked into the kitchen for her medication, the ad did not greet her as it had for the past month. Instead it sat, silent and dark, a life-sized doll made out of LCD and carbon. It no longer appeared to be anything like Robert. It was just a lifeless machine that had grown tired of masquerading as her husband.
一天早上，当她走进厨房拿药时，广告没有像过去一个月那样欢迎她。相反，它静静地坐在那里，由LCD和碳制成的真人大小的娃娃。它不再看起来像罗伯特了。它只是一个厌倦了伪装成她丈夫的无生命的机器。
She stared at it for a long time, expecting it to come to life with another skewed economics lecture. In case it had a sleep function, she prodded it with a wooden spoon, poking it resolutely in the stomach, the arm, the face. Nothing.
她盯着它看了很长时间，希望它会随着另一场歪曲的经济学讲座而复活。以防它有休眠功能，她用木勺戳了戳它，坚定地戳在它的胃部、手臂和脸上。什么都没有。
Marie sat down on the other side of the table, leaned far over it and stared at the ad. The face was not really human, but she traced the features with her fingertips, over the smooth hills and valleys that gave the ad a physical presence when it was on. The screen itself was cold to the touch, and she left little skin-oil smudges behind.
玛丽坐在桌子的另一边，身体前倾，凝视着广告。这张脸并不是真正的人类面孔，但她用指尖描摹着它的特征，抚过光滑的山丘和山谷，让广告在播放时具有了实体感。屏幕本身摸上去很冷，她留下了几滴皮肤油脂的污迹。
Down the neck and across the chest, she could see scratches and scrapes from tree branches and possibly animals. Places where she might have noticed pixels out if she’d looked at it more closely.
沿着脖子和胸部，她可以看到树枝和动物造成的抓痕和擦伤。如果她仔细看的话，她可能会注意到像素。
Marie sat back in her chair. When she had finished crying, she was left with the problem of disposing of the body. She felt foolish, too…Hadn’t she meant originally to kill the stupid things?
玛丽坐回椅子上。哭完之后，她面临着如何处理尸体的问题。她觉得自己很傻……她不是一开始就打算杀掉这些愚蠢的东西吗？
The ad was lighter than she’d thought it would be. For all it was nearly the size and build of Robert, it was made of far lighter materials than flesh and bone.Marie was able to drag it with one hand under its left shoulder. She carried her lightweight shovel with her other hand, prodding or swatting any of the outdoor ads that got in her way.
广告牌比她想象的要轻。尽管它几乎和罗伯特一样大小和结构，但它是由比肉和骨头轻得多的材料制成的。玛丽能够用一只手拖着它的左肩。她用另一只手拿着轻便的铲子，戳或打走挡路的任何户外广告。
They were still as obnoxious as ever, hovering, surrounding, circling Marie and the dead advertisement like sharks around a sinking boat. The air filled with pitches, slogans, prices.
他们一如既往地令人讨厌，像鲨鱼围着即将沉没的船一样围着玛丽和那个死去的广告牌盘旋、环绕、打转。空气中充斥着广告词、标语和价格。
“We don’t have to pay until 2045!”
“我们不用付钱，直到2045年！”
“I really think you’d like these perfumes, honey.”
“我真的认为你会喜欢这些香水，亲爱的。”
“Come and visit, the alcohol’s free!”
“来参观吧，酒水免费！”
Marie trudged along the thin dirt path that led from her little house, until dry pine needles crackled under her clogs and under the feet of the ads that followed her in a herd. When the ground went flat for a bit, she dragged the ad through a few feet of sparse sword fern.
玛丽从她的小屋出发，沿着一条狭窄的土路跋涉，干枯的松针在她的木屐下嘎吱作响，在她身后，一群广告紧随其后。当地面变得平坦时，她拖着广告穿过几英尺稀疏的剑蕨丛。
She dug a shallow grave under a tamarack, and covered the ad with just enough dirt to hide it from view. She didn’t think anything would dig it up, but she felt a little bad for not making the grave deeper when the other ads walked over the mound of dirt mixed with pine needles.
她在一棵美洲落叶松下挖了一个浅浅的坟墓，用刚好能盖住广告的泥土把它掩盖起来。她觉得没什么东西会把它挖出来，但是当其他广告从混杂着松针的泥土堆上走过时，她觉得有点内疚，没有把坟墓挖得更深。
Marie wiped her face on the sleeve of her rosebud blouse, and then she took her sweet time walking back down the mountain, still ignoring the advertisements that seemed entirely unaware of the loss of one of their number.
玛丽用她的玫瑰花苞上衣的袖子擦了擦脸，然后慢慢地走下山，仍然无视那些广告，似乎完全不知道他们中的一员已经失踪了。
Marie found the second dead advertisement a few days later, toppled over on the front walk-way to her house, scuffed from the feet of the other ads, as motionless and empty as the one that had died in her kitchen.
几天后，玛丽在自家前门的人行道上发现了第二张死去的广告，它被其他广告压在脚下，和其他广告一样一动不动，空荡荡的，就像那张死在厨房里的广告一样。
She thought very seriously about burying it with the other ad, but then she looked at the crowds of them that filled her yard and thought better of it. So Marie dragged the second advertisement out to her shed, and she propped it up between a rake and a hoe, leaving it for the dust to collect on. She realized she could have left it out among the other ads, but she didn’t like the idea of her home being surrounded by forgotten bodies.
她认真地考虑过和其他广告一起把它埋了，但当她看到院子里挤满了人时，就打消了这个念头。于是，玛丽把第二张广告拖到她的棚子里，把它支在一个耙子和一把锄头之间，让它落满灰尘。她意识到她本可以把它和其他广告放在一起，但她不喜欢家里被遗忘的尸体包围的想法。
Every few days she found another, sometimes only toppled over as though its batteries had simply quit, and sometimes sitting tucked against the side of her house as though it had powered down.
每隔几天，她就会发现另一个，有时只是倒下了，好像电池已经没电了，有时会坐在她房子的一侧，好像已经关机了。
She filled her shed with them, and started setting the others up as scarecrows,guarding her vegetables from the birds, though they did nothing to keep away the smaller animals and deer when they didn’t move.
她把她的棚屋装满了它们，并开始把它们设置成稻草人，保护她的蔬菜免受鸟类的侵袭，尽管当它们不移动时，它们对驱赶较小的动物和鹿毫无作用。
The month lengthens and becomes two months, then three, four, five. The ads still come, but there are fewer, and as time goes on, Marie finds that sometimes weeks pass between appearances. Now, when the ads arrive, they are very little danger to her gardens, and she is able to harvest what she needs without them getting in her way.
月份变长了，变成两个月，然后三个月、四个月、五个月。广告还是会来，但数量减少了，而且随着时间的推移，玛丽发现有时要过几个星期才会出现一次。现在，当广告出现时，它们对她的花园几乎没有危险，她能够收割她需要的东西，而不必担心它们挡路。
They come to her to die and sometimes, when it has been a long time between visits, she lets the ads inside, and she listens to them while she serves sandwiches and tea she has made from what she can grow on the plot of land behind her house. The ads that make it to her mountain are moving slower and slower, and Marie is not surprised. She is moving slower these days, too, though she is not sure if that is the weather, leaning in toward winter, working cold into the ragged edges of her joints, or what is left to her now the pills have run out.
他们来找她等死，有时，在很久没来人之后，她会放一些广告进来，她一边给他们送三明治和茶，一边听他们说话，三明治和茶都是用她屋后那块地上种的东西做的。那些广告传到她的山里时，速度越来越慢，玛丽对此并不感到惊讶。这些天，她自己的动作也越来越慢，不过她不确定是因为天气越来越冷，向冬天靠近，还是因为关节炎越来越严重，还是因为药吃完了，她已经没什么可做的了。
Every so often, the ads look like Robert. Sometimes they look like her friends;sometimes they look like her mother. Sometimes they look like nobody she has ever known, and sometimes they look like she imagines her children would have if she and Robert had ever cared to try.
时不时地，这些广告看起来像罗伯特。有时他们看起来像她的朋友；有时他们看起来像她的母亲。有时他们看起来像她从未认识过的人，有时他们看起来像她想象中的孩子，如果她和罗伯特愿意尝试的话。
Maybe when the winter is done, she thinks, she will climb down from her mountain to see what is left. The smell of the dead in the city will have gone by then, and there may be other survivors on other hills, looking for her. She holds the slightest of hopes that there are fewer ads because they have found others,and not just because they were never meant to last for so long, lost and alone in a dead world.
也许等到冬天过去，她想，她就会从山上爬下来，看看还剩下什么。到那时，城市里死去的味道就会散去，其他山丘上可能会有其他幸存者正在找她。她有一丝希望，广告会少一些，因为他们找到了其他人，而不仅仅是因为他们从未打算在这个死去的世界里孤独无助地活这么久。
作者介绍：
凯菲·R·M·凯尔利住在华盛顿州西部，因此非雨天通常让他感到无所适从。他的作品曾发表在《西碧尔的车库》上，并将出现在《Talebones》上。他参加了2008年的克拉丽奥写作坊，他的网址是www.keffy.com。
Keffy R.M. Kehrlilives in western Washington and is therefore typically disoriented by non-rainy days. His work has previously appeared inSybil’s Garageand will be appearing inTalebones. He attended Clarion in 2008 and can be found online at www.keffy.com.
来源杂志：Descended from Darkness Volume II(Apex magazine)
