Prerequisites for Sleep Read Online Free PDF Page B

checks on my progress about thirty times a day. He crouches on his haunches a couple of feet from where I am trying to work.
    â€œSo when do I get that balloon ride?” I keep trying to make conversation because if I don’t, he just sits there watching me with his happy-Grinch grin.
    â€œWhen you finish your elephant.”
    â€œIs that a promise?”
    â€œI give you my word.”
    â€œGood, an incentive plan. If I don’t like it, you’ll have to come up with different rewards for future projects. How about cash bonuses?”
    â€œYou’ll like it.”
    â€œCompany shares?”
    â€œYou are such a dreamer.”
    â€œAh, but you like my dreams because I dream in 3 D .”
    â€œStop dreaming and build your elephant.” He laughs as he gets up and walks away.
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    May and Lin are making a cake, so I surround myself with pink nylon and sew the elephant on my own. A cylinder-shaped baffle runs through the centre and reinforcements are necessary on the trunk and neck. For contrast, I make the insides of the ears and the toenails purple. I’m glad to be off my knees and the job goes quickly.
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    â€œI wish you didn’t have to work today,” I say to Andy over an apple-crêpe breakfast. “Once I attach all the loops, we’re going to inflate my elephant.”
    â€œTake the video camera; we’ll watch it as soon as I get home. We can have popcorn to celebrate. I’ll pick up the candy-coated stuff you like from Kernels.”
    Later, May operates the video camera so I can see the elephant inflate at actual size. Magnus connects the fan and turns it on. The body begins to unfold, taking shape like an embryo developing its parts. My stomach clenches when the head and trunk emerge and I worry about pressure on the seams of the neck and gusset. In less than two minutes, the large ears snap into place and my pachyderm is sitting large and pink before me — smiling.
    Magnus is pleased. “Looks excellent,” he says, walking around and surveying the body from all angles. “Nice big ears for banners. And you gave him a tail.”
    â€œHer. I gave her a tail. Can’t imagine a pink elephant being a him.”
    â€œPerhaps you wish to name her.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    â€œCome, let’s check to see how she is holding up.”
    Undoing the back zipper, we crawl inside and stand up. The fan hums and cool air brushes my skin. Magnus closes the zipper and pulls on the baffle that stretches from the elephant’s neck to the canvas base, then inspects the flat-felled seams of the outer walls.
    â€œYou don’t make mistakes,” he says. That little-boy look is on his face.
    â€œI do. I make hundreds. I just make them over and over in my head. I try to think things through before I jump in.”
    Without warning he wraps me in his arms and kisses me. His breath smells like Juicy Fruit. I try to recall if I have ever seen him chew gum. He kisses me again, this time it is long and passionate. I blink and struggle to focus. Everything around me is pink. I think about Andy at work, not existing among someone else’s creations, and about drifting in a balloon. I reach out and try to touch something real. There is no one there to pull me back.

Prerequisites for Sleep
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    It rained through the night and early morning, tearing the petals from the lilies in the garden. They lay on the ground like pieces of satin tinged with rust. The sky looked bruised, as if it had more crying to do. Anita stood in the kitchen, looking out at the day through the screen of the back door. The thin lines of mesh made everything appear slightly out of focus.
    â€œSome people believe that it is good luck to have rain on your wedding day,” Judith said cheerfully.
    Anita poured coffee into her favourite mug, a black one with a large white A on the side and a chip in the rim, then sat down at the table next to her aunt. Lately, she