Idea in Stone | Page 5

certainly do," said the cleric, pulling out a device from his robes.
Stefan handed his card to the man and he zipped it through. A moment
later, he said, "Good, it's been approved. Thank you." He closed the top
of the pillar, and a strong light leaked from under the lid. Stefan could
feel the heat, and heard his paper crackling.
The cleric opened the top and the sheet was gone. "All finished," he
said. Stefan smiled and nodded, feeling quite stupid, having fallen for
this magic trick. He quietly followed as the cleric led him back to the
front entrance of the church.
~
Stefan turned the corner to his street and walked under the canopy of
trees. He saw a rental truck parked and knew it was for his house.
Closer now, he watched men in blue jumpsuits moving large objects
from the open rear of the truck to his front door -- boxes, gnarled

antique furniture, and a procession of cello cases. Stefan stepped
around the workers and boxes to get through the door.
"Stefan," he heard Delonia saying from somewhere in the mess. He
kept moving, wanting nothing more than to reach his room, the place
his friends jokingly referred to as The Fortress of Solitude. However,
the notion of Superman living in his mother's basement had loserish
implications he didn't like to think about.
"Stefan," repeated Delonia. She'd spotted him and closed in. He tried to
dodge around a cello case, but his foot made contact with something
disturbingly soft, and the thing made a hiss of feline protest. "There you
are," said Delonia. "I wanted to ask you to stay home for supper tonight.
It's the first night Cerise will be with us, and I thought it would be nice
for us all to eat together."
"Mom, can you understand how galactically weird this is for me?
You're asking me to have supper with my mother and her
goddamned--"
"Hello Stefan," said Cerise, suddenly at his side.
"Hello," he replied. "How are you?"
"Frankly, I'm a bit nervous about the move. I was in my other house for
a long time, and I'm not sure how the cats will adjust. And I don't want
to come between you and your mother."
Feel free, he thought. "Well, thanks for being so honest."
The phone rang, mercifully ending the conversation. It stood on a table
next to Stefan, but he made no move to answer it. Stefan watched as
Delonia rushed awkwardly through the slalom course of detritus, then
he picked up the phone and handed it to her. Offended on his mother's
behalf, Cerise asked in a tone far too parental for his liking, "Why
didn't you answer that for her?"
"I can't use the telephone."

Delonia covered the mouthpiece, aware of the exchange. "He hears
things on it, voices," she said, wiggling a hand next to her ear.
Cerise looked at Stefan blankly.
"She exaggerates," he said. "It's just one voice."
"Oh." Not sure what to do with the information, Cerise picked up a cat.
~
Stefan took off the respectable-looking sweater he'd worn to the supper
table, folded it up, and stuffed it in a drawer. He put on his cordless
headphones and put a CD in the flat stereo on the wall. The upbeat
music made him feel happy, and he danced around as he pulled off his
trousers. He stood in front of the mirror in his T-shirt and Y-fronts. You
are kinda short, he thought, and pretty skinny, except for that. He lifted
his shirt and poked his small tummy. And you might lose your hair. He
lifted his drooping bangs to inspect the tide-line with its V-shaped peak.
But I think you're cute. His eyes were big and brown, set into a long
face that tapered (maybe a little too much) into a small chin. His long
nose led to a wide smile bracketed by long dimples. I have dimples, not
lines, he thought. The whole effect was endearingly cute, but
cartoonishly, friendly-cute. The aquarium guy was smoulderingly cute.
I want to smoulder. People like smoulder. Smoulder, smoulder,
smoulder. The word lost its meaning and sounded funny, foreign.
He hit the Stop button on the stereo, hung up his headphones, and
dropped into bed, the rhythm of the song still in his head, carrying him
away.
He drifted backwards, flashes of the day's sights before him, giving
way gradually to a soft darkness. A familiar voice spoke words he
couldn't quite hear, then faded out, replaced by the sound of his father's
voice singing a simple tune. Then that, too, became just a faint echo in
a large space.
He opened his dream eyes and found himself sitting cross-legged on

the moon. The powdery landscape stretched away in every direction,
punctuated with