Prerequisites for Sleep Read Online Free PDF

looks like an animated rabbit.
    â€œHaven’t you ever heard of pink elephants?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThey’re an illusion. When someone has too much to drink, they begin to see things that aren’t there, like blue mice and pink elephants. If you really want some publicity, you could put one up at the top of the Don Valley where the highways all merge, and have banners that read DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE .”
    He looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language.
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    After work, I go to Toys “R” Us at the mall. The stuffed animal section is next to the baby products, just past bikes and outdoor toys. A little boy is riding a big-wheel trike up the aisle. His bum is only inches off the floor while his feet man the pedals on the large front tire. The noise rumbles through the store.
    I pick up a small elephant that is white with contrasting blue striped fabric on the undersides of its ears and the pads of its feet. Its trunk is up and I decide to buy it. I’ve read somewhere that elephants with their trunks up are lucky.
    When Andy comes home from work he points to the elephant sitting on our dresser. “What’s this?” He tosses his cooking whites into the laundry basket. I catch a whiff of someone else’s menu. Garlic and onions and curry, and the lingering smell of cooking oil — too much oil. Andy would never overuse cooking oil in his own creations. “Is there something you want to tell me?” His eyes light up, and he delivers a grin that says he could handle it if I were to spring certain news.
    â€œIt’s my inspiration. I’m making a twenty-five-foot pink elephant.”
    â€œHey,” he laughs, “you could put it next to the highway during the holidays with a DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE banner.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I said, but Magnus didn’t get it. He didn’t understand the connotation, even after I explained it.”
    â€œDid you tell him it would make the news?”
    â€œI tried, but he has an entirely different thought process; and I don’t think pro bono is his style.”
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    On Thursday, Joanne seeks me out to give me my pay. She works an hour a day in the shop, taking care of the money and the books. She is the opposite of Magnus, serious and tense with unruly brown hair. Shadowed crescents below her eyes give her a hollow look, although overall, she is an attractive woman. With makeup and hot rollers, she would be beautiful. I heard her tell Nancy the story of how Magnus swept her off her feet in a balloon when she was backpacking with friends through Europe.
    â€œDid you like the cake?” I ask when she hands me an envelope.
    â€œI like the idea of the cake,” she says. “It will be good for business.”
    Forcing a smile, I thank her for my pay and decide to save any future questions for Zoe, who brings me pictures and tells me that I should make them into inflatables. They all look the same, triangle bodies with big eyes. She has the basic shape right — inflatables need large bottoms.
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    The elephant is coming along nicely, although I lie awake at night correcting design flaws. I make a small-scale model, stuffed with cotton fluff, to test a pattern I drafted on graph paper. Magnus runs a low-tech shop, so to create the full-scale version I have to grid up the pattern manually. This requires taping together large pieces of heavy brown paper and using bricks and boards to hold it flat because it constantly wants to curl. The second step is measuring and drawing the lines to create giant graph paper. Afterwards there is the process of filling in the large boxes with the same information that is on my miniature version. It’s not difficult, only time-consuming and hard on the knees and neck. I plug away at it while humming the jingle from an old cereal commercial. Pink elephants, pink, pink elephants, lots of pink elephants…
    Magnus, antsy as he is,