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Jass Richards
Category:
Young Adult/Teen
Publisher: Magenta
ISBN-10: 1926891619
Type: Fiction
Pages: 256
Copyright: April 15, 2014
ISBN-13: 9781926891613
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
A philosophical comedic novel set in the near future in which people who want to become parents must become licensed.
Rev and Dylan (whom we meet in The Road Trip Dialogues) have returned from their ‘blasphemy tour’ (The Blasphemy Tour) to discover that Canada has adopted the Parent Licence Act: people who wish to become parents must apply for, and meet certain requirements before being granted, a licence. What if? After all, we require hairdressers and plumbers to be licensed. Dylan, freelance journalist, investigates, interviews, and observes; Rev, loose cannon, solves an ‘illegal fertilization’ mystery. They both occasionally get stoned and silly, and deal with a baby wolf who has adopted them.
Excerpt
“Guess what happened while we were away,” Dylan said to Rev. They were in her screened porch, Rev sunk lengthwise into her couch staring out at the sparkling lake, Dylan stretched out on a lounge chair staring at his open laptop.
They’d just come back from their infamous ‘blasphemy tour’, ostensibly a series of speaking engagements at American Bible Colleges, sponsored by the Atheist Alliance Consortium, to talk about their recent adventure in court. They’d been charged with blasphemy when they’d added “‘Blessed are they that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stone.’ — Psalms 137:9” to a billboard just outside Algonquin Park. A Right-to-Life billboard.
A great number of things, Rev thought, would have happened while they were away. An infinite number of things, if Dylan was including events that had occurred in alternate universes. If she took into account his interests, that would narrow it down. But not by much. Ah. The laptop. If he was reading the news, then, given the news producers’ interests, that would narrow it down to just half a dozen things. Politics, business, sports, cars, houses, and travel. Well, one thing, really. Money.
“Are you rea—”
“You’re just supposed to say ‘What?’” Dylan said.
She thought about that for a moment.
“Why?”
He groaned, grinned, then sighed.
Bloody hell, but he was going to miss her. He was a professional housesitter, and so didn’t really have a home of his own, but since their serendipitous meeting about a year ago, some twenty years after they’d gone through teachers’ college together—at the end of which they had both been voted most likely to be brilliant teachers and, simultaneously, least likely to be hired—he’d been spending half his time at her cabin on a lake in a forest, near Sudbury. He had a housesit scheduled in Argentina for two weeks hence, but, he thought now, maybe he’d cancel it and just stay here. Stay home, he happily amended.
“Okay, where?” Rev had decided to narrow it down.
“What?”
They stared at each other.
“Have some Froot Loops,” he said and held the box out to her.
“There’s no pizza left?”
“Someone ate it all.”
“Hm.”
He returned to his laptop, and she returned to the sun-glittering lake. She had missed it dearly while they were away and now couldn’t get enough of it.
“So,” Dylan tried again, “have you read the news recently?”
“No,” she replied. Then added, “Not since the early 90s.”
He looked up from his laptop in disbelief, stared at her expectantly, and was not disappointed.
“It’s always the same old shit,” she explained. “About which I can do nothing, since I am the epitome of powerlessness. So what’s the point? Stupidity doesn’t entertain me.”
Dylan snorted.
“Which means, by the way,” she continued, ignoring the snort, “that I depend on you to tell me when some Nero’s gone nuclear. Or some yahoo gets the blueprints for the reactors mixed up and installs the earthquake supports backwards. Again. So I can go up to the loft.”
“That’s not going to stop you from getting irradiated.”
“No, but it’s where I keep my suicide kit.”
He considered that information for a moment.
“Why the loft?” he finally asked.
“I figure, generally speaking, if I’m that depressed, I’m too depressed to climb the stairs. So it’s a—”
“Got it. Good idea.”
And then another moment.
“And what’s in your suicide kit?”
“A bottle of Jack Daniels, a razor blade, and lots and lots of Nyquil. And a pen and some paper.”
He nodded. “To write what, exactly?”
“Oh, you know, last words about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Or maybe just our epitaph.”
“Which would be?”
She thought about that for a bit. “‘I told you we were sick.’”
He laughed. “Indeed.”
“And yet,” he said then, pointing at his laptop, “guess what happened—”
She glared at him. Sort of.
“Canada passed the Parent Licence Act,” he said quickly.
She slowly turned her gaze from the lake to him. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. The NDP voted for it because it would piss off the Go-forth-and-multiply Conservatives, and the Conservatives voted for it because it would piss off the You-can’t-touch-our-civil-liberties NDP.”
He passed his laptop to her so she could skim the article.
“Wow,” she said when she was done.
“And,” he continued, happily, “That Magazine wants me to do an article about it.”
“What magazine?”
“That Magazine. Remember? There’s this magazine called—we’ve been over this before. Haven’t we?”
“Oh yeah. Cool!”
She turned her gaze back to the lake.
“You should call up Hugh LaFollette,” she said after a few moments, “if he’s still alive. He published a paper on the idea back in the 80s. And Jack Westman wrote a book about it. You could cover the legal implications, the moral implications, you could interview parents, Family Services, the Church…” She was off and running. As he knew she would be.
Dylan was typing away. A moment later, he hit ‘Send’ and a note arrived in
Argentina.
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