Idea in Stone Read Online Free PDF Page B

made an exaggerated movement like a camel chewing, then gave the sound technician a thumbs-up sign. A red light illuminated on the microphone and Stefan took a deep breath to speak. The sound booth door opened and Jean the producer entered. Stefan exhaled.
    “Sorry,” she said, “I just had a meeting with lawyers and one of the writers, and we came up with a revised copy of today’s script. Here you go Stefan. Sorry for the short notice.”
    Stefan was about to launch into a complaint, but found himself empty. Why should he care? He was leaving. He had no idea where to, or how he was going to manage it, but the idea had clicked into place, and he was as good as gone. Jean held out the sheets of paper. Stefan smiled at her and took them. He riffled through them, his eyebrows raising reflexively, little “Hmms” vibrating from his mouth at intervals. He read bits of the revisions aloud: “With bioengineering it will be possible to feed the world... Nuclear energy continues to be the cleanest, most efficient way to produce electricity...” He turned to Jean and smiled again. “Great!”
    She cocked her head, looked at him for a moment, then said, “Oh. Well, okay then. I’ll be in my office.” At the door, she took another look back at Stefan, paused, then left.
    The work went easily for the rest of the day, and Jean didn’t interrupt again. Stefan wondered why he hadn’t thought of the ‘go limp’ approach before. Luckily, his conscience left him alone, perhaps because of his mind’s preoccupation with the recent change in plans.

    ~

    DINEGHRU. Stefan rubbed his eyes and looked at the little wisps of paper. Breathing carefully so he wouldn’t blow them off his side-table, he placed this morning’s down, the letter B. DINEGHRUB. Oh, he thought, that’s much clearer .
    He went upstairs, intending to have a shower, but his mother stopped him along the way. “Stefan,” she said, “you’re just in time to have breakfast with us!” He sat at the table, his hunger overriding his discomfort at the idea. His mother’s Saturday breakfasts were his favourite meal of the week. She scooped and sliced and arranged, then brought over a heaping plate of wheat-free, eggless, milkless pancakes, fat-free, meatless mock-bacon, and fried potatoes—actual potatoes. The ‘bacon’ made him gassy, but he did actually enjoy it. He liked all of his mother’s synthetic cooking. Being so familiar with it, he found the real-world inspirations for his mother’s food analogies odd, foreign. (Though he regularly ordered double-helpings of real bacon when he ate out with friends as a little stand for his independence, despite the queasy and guilty feelings that followed.)
    Cerise’s gown flowed as she approached the table, making her look like a husky piece of artwork that had escaped before being properly unveiled. “Good morning,” she said to them both, lingering with a knowing look to Delonia. She sat to Stefan’s right, in his father’s seat. The table in the kitchen was square, though, and not large, so he let the transgression pass. Had she taken the other seat she’d be sitting opposite him, and that would be a more pressing annoyance.
    “Good morning,” said Delonia, carrying plates over for herself and Cerise, leaning down to give Cerise a kiss on the cheek as she put her plate down. Stefan spurted orange juice back into his glass. He wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “So are you almost ready for your Christmas show, Mom?” he asked.
    “Almost. We haven’t filled the third guest slot yet, and we’ve got a few more rehearsals to do. Oh, which reminds me: are you free to pick me up on Monday night at the studio?”
    “Oh,” he said, as if his plans would be horribly compromised, although he had none.
    “You know I wouldn’t ask you, but you know, since I can’t drive—”
    What a fiasco that was, he remembered, Canada’s first lady of song (okay, fourth, fifth, or maybe eighth) being arrested on