The Dilettantes Read Online Free PDF

Just Me, by Sudoku Puzzle. S. Puzzle for short.”
    “If I really picture myself smoking hard, my brain will release some sweet, sweet endorphins. I’ll clench my fists.”
    “Would we have to pay this Sudoku guy?”
    “Yeah. And who is he, anyway?”
    “I should say that he’s never actually made one of them before. But he’s been meaning to for, like, forever. He’s a stand-up dude. A real think tank.”
    “Are you related to this person?”
    “Yes.”
    “
Jesus
.”
    “I bet I could smoke ten cigarettes at once. Someone dog dare me.”
    “If nobody takes minutes we’re never going to remember this for next week. Can someone find the Spider-Man binder? I’ll do it. I have a pen.”
    “Okay, I changed my mind, you guys. We can put Sudokus in the humour section, guys, as long as I get to make them myself. Hand-drawn. Full page. And we’ll save time, too, because they’ll be unsolvable. Just never print the answers.”
    “It never … none of this is procedural.”
    “Also they’ll be in Comic Sans.”
    “You use that for everything.”
    “That’s because
it is a perfect font.”
    “Smoke, smoke, smoke, smoking.”
    “Ugh. It should be illegal to use if you’re over eleven years old. You should automatically be registered as a sex offender.”
    “Rick! Will
The Peak
buy me cigarettes?”
    “No.”
    “Who put this popsicle in the microwave?”
    “Don’t touch that. I’m using it.”
    The Peak
employed a total of eleven editors and, in a vague homage to the school’s heavy-left political origins, had no editor-in-chief. Section editors dictated their own content, and disputes were solved by a show of hands, heroically long-winded emails, and the occasional secret ballot.
    So they sat, equals, on itchy couches and around an old wooden coffee table that was spray-painted purple from three redesigns ago, and talked about the larger task at hand. Something had to be done. Decisions had to be made. Action had to be taken. Someone made coffee. That was a start. They all agreed that the
Metro’
s move should be viewed as a direct assault on their autonomy, and that the student government should have already taken swift action to keep the daily at bay. A manifesto was immediately proposed, to unanimous yahs and whistles. Papers were swept off desks. Excessively long pens were drawn. Three people called the state of affairs an abomination. Chip, the perpetually red-in-the-face sports editor, announced he wasn’t “going to take this lying down.” And stood up.
    “We need gumption,” he said. “We need hustle. Now’s no time to keep our stick on the ice.” Chip was round and squat, sporting suspenders and an archaically bushy moustache. He held eye contact with the intensity of someone bound and gagged in a car trunk.
    Rachel, the news editor, said, “The thing that gets me is, they can’t just come up here and tell SFU students what news is. That’s our job.” She would know. Rachel had worked there for longer than anyone else could remember, and could cite arcane policies and protocols for which no written record existed. Nobody knew what she studied, but her hair showed constant signs of being chewedon, as if she was forever on the brink of some oral presentation or cumulative exam. “We know this campus. It’s our beat. We know what our readers want.”
    “Totally. And I see where you’re going with that, Rachel. For example, I spent all last night Photoshopping pictures of dolphins playing Connect 4. I am willing to donate my work for the cause.” This was Keith: humour editor, eater of pizza, and lifelong critic of
The Peak
until he found out he could get weekly free pizza and a warm place on campus to sleep off his drinking in exchange for producing two pages of content every issue.
    “Look,” Rachel said. “We need to send a message. This kind of behaviour will not stand. Okay? It simply will not.”
    “I wish we could just tell them to
eff off,”
one of the younger editors