One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

even know if it was a man or a woman, and she didn’t give a damn. She continued to stare out the window. And whenever any cloudy snippet of conversation made its way into her ears, she tuned it out.
    “Yes,” said Ringo. “Our son’s name is Hieronymus.”
    “A very nice name,” said the social worker, smiling. “Did you or your wife choose that name?”
    Ringo’s voice was resigned and unfocused. And he hesitated, as if he were hiding something, something he wanted to speak about but simply couldn’t.
    “I chose it on my own. My wife has not been herself lately — she waved me away when I asked her what we should name our baby. She refused to be a part of the decision.”
    He looked up and noticed the social worker was sitting next to him. Her name was Joyellenbacx and she was wearing a suit made of aluminum paper, and her shoes were very chic — bright red with drawings of grizzly bears etched into the shiny plastic. She wore a women’s tie that had a matching grizzly bear printed on it. She had large black eyes. Her hair was black. She smiled, and Ringo managed only a half-smile. And that was because he found her to be attractive — if she was only neutral in his eyes, he would have given her a neutral glance. With no smile at all.
    “Why did you name him Hieronymus?” she asked, her smile unwavering, yet sincere.
    “Oh. Well, you see…I was thinking that…you know, she might…” His eyes glazed over with suppressed tears. “That name, that name, is… well, I wasn’t thinking very clearly when I filled in the birth registration.”
    “And is your wife okay with your choice of name?”
    “I think so. I told her yesterday. I can’t always tell if she is paying attention. I’ll ask her. Barbie? Barbie, do you like the name I picked for our son? Hieronymus — remember? Our son’s name is Hieronymus.”
    Barbie sobbed louder for a few seconds, then with her limp, barely living, horribly pale hand, she waved him away and continued weeping, her face deep in the moist pillow, no longer interested in the window and the landscape and the tower with the power outage in the distance.
    “It’s fine with her,” Ringo said, as if his wife had somehow communicated something other than go away. “She likes the name.”
    Joyellenbacx continued to smile, but not as sincerely as before. After a moment’s awkward pause, she began to speak in a hushed voice.
    “Your son,” she continued, “suffers from lunarcroptic ocular symbolanosis, also known simply as LOS.”
    “Yes,” replied Ringo, his voice barely audible. “I know.”
    The social worker was about to start in with the usual — that the misinformation surrounding those with LOS was completely untrue, that their son would indeed have a completely normal life. One Hundred Percent Lunar children always grew up to be completely normal One Hundred Percent Lunar adults. They got educated side by side with other kids. They got jobs and they got married. They had children like everyone else. They were citizens, and on the Moon their rights were equal to all other citizens. On the Moon, that is.
    But she saw he was a very well-informed man. He was less interested in the statistics and clearly worried about his son’s health.
    “Is LOS a disease?”
    “No. Not at all. Your son is extremely healthy.”
    “So there is nothing wrong with him.”
    “Correct.”
    “Well, if LOS is not a disease, what is it?”
    “We don’t know. Lunarcroptic ocular symbolanosis began to show up about two hundred years ago. There are theories as to why some are born with it, but nothing has been proven. It is simply the ability to see a fourth primary color.”
    Ringo already knew. But the idea was too abstract for him to grasp its social and even political implications.
    “I don’t understand what the big damn deal is. So what? My son can see a few colors that the rest us can’t. If that means he’s just a little less colorblind than most of humanity, well, so be