Read Online Idea in Stone by Hamish Macdonald - Free Book Online Page B

grinned, and the tears in his eyes turned the moonlight into a marquee around his vision. He wiped at his face. His father motioned to an old, polished log upended in the clearing, and Stefan sat on it, still speechless with joy. His father didn’t speak, either, but that seemed to be a limitation of however he managed to be here. Instead his smile played wide through his beard and cheeks. His eyes, big and dark like Stefan’s, wrinkled with a knowing kind of grace. Stefan had so much to say to him, so many questions based on the assumption that death had given him special insight. Or did Stefan simply expect him to have answers just because he was his father, even though he’d died when he was only a few years older than Stefan was now? What does he know of the world now? Stefan wondered. Do you know what I’m thinking? he thought while looking at the figure, but his father didn’t respond. It was as if he was waiting for Stefan to finish, to acclimatise, so he could get on with what he was here for.
    One of the raccoons shuffled toward him holding something. He held it up for Stefan, who took it, seeing that it was an old binocular photo viewer. He looked at the raccoon, who handed him a card with two pieces of film it in. Stefan put that in the viewer. He looked to his father, who pointed up. Stefan clipped the card in place and looked through the device, holding it up so the moon shone on its white celluloid backdrop and illuminated the double slides.
    He saw an old cobbled street with tall stone buildings lining its sides. They were topped with angles and arches and spires. He sighed, loving the sight of it. He knew the name of this place, which was spelled out on his bedside table at home. He knew it had some connection with his father, and now with him.
    Something jerked his hand, and he found himself squinting into whiteness. The city scene was gone. He looked accusingly at the raccoon beside him, who shrugged in its way and held out its little paws to show they were empty. He looked at the ring of raccoons around his father’s feet, who shrugged in unison, then at his father, who shrugged, not looking playful, but sad about the disappearance.
    The raccoon motioned that it wanted the picture-viewer back, so Stefan handed it over, now that it had nothing to show. The raccoon joined the others, blending into their furry mass of grey punctuated with masked faces. From their midst emerged another raccoon, this one holding a sheaf of papers, carrying them with some difficulty to Stefan. He took the papers and looked at the typewritten cover-sheet. The Empire of Nothing , it said, a play by Robert Mackechnie . Stefan looked up at his father, surprised. “I didn’t know you wrote plays,” said Stefan. His father smiled and shrugged again. He gestured for Stefan to read it.
    Stefan read a story of a man and a woman, a couple who met in war-time. Powers clashed over their heads, forces unconcerned with the lovers’ welfare—giving them a kind of anarchic freedom from things that might have kept them apart, but ultimately destroyed the world in which they wanted to live together. Stefan enjoyed it and felt it had something important to say, though he didn’t know exactly what. When he finished, he asked his father, “May I have this?” His father nodded, but the raccoon took the shuffled papers away and brought them back to the circle. Stefan didn’t understand, but all the raccoons seemed to be in co-operation with his father, their circle somehow keeping him here and giving him physical means. So he let it take the script away.
    Two more raccoons stepped forward and moved to either side of the moonlit clearing. One put a tiny paw to its ear and turned from side to side, listening. The second held a paw over its eyes and looked around. They each stepped backwards until they bumped into each other, surprised, and hugged. They became an indistinct ball of grey. Suddenly, from the fur sprang two deer, who bounded