Teo had liked Elienne from the moment he first met her at the orphanage. She was kind, gentle, and seemed to take his lack of eyes in stride. He honestly couldn’t think of a better person to be a mother. He could think of some worse people, but so far as Histeol was concerned, his adopted mother was the best mother a person could possibly have. She was sympathetic, she listened, she raised her children to be responsible, she gave them space when they needed it, but she was also there to be a shoulder to cry on, with a mug of hot cocoa and fresh-baked brownies. She was almost a stereotype of herself—almost, but not quite. It made Teo’s new life even better than it already was.There was one thing that other people might say was a problem with Elienne. Teo disagreed. He thought it was brilliant. He agreed with it whole-heartedly, and would happily…er…ignore other people complaining about it? He wasn’t confrontational. Maybe after he’d lived with Elienne and his new sister Callessa for a few more months. Maybe then he’d be willing to say a word or two in his new family’s defense. The matter in question was the matter of electronic entertainment. Elienne did not own a television. She owned a computer, but it was strictly for business purposes, and she spent very little time on the computer. It helped that she worked most of the time out in the barn, and the computer was not in the barn. So there were no movies to watch, no television shows to follow endlessly, no video games to play. Instead, the evening’s entertainment came either from recorded books, from (shudder!) talking to each other, or else to listening to the radio.
It was remarkable. Teo had never had a radio. He’d never had a lot of things, but the…the place he used to live hadn’t had a radio. It had had a small portable television and an antenna to pirate cable from. There had been laptops for the other people to watch and play on. The idea of a form of entertainment other than music that was purely auditory appealed to Teo. Where had it been all his life?! Music was nice, but music hardly ever had a story, and when it was, it was an old story, one that was hard to connect to. Quite frankly, ballads about some highwaywoman who was betrayed by her wife four centuries ago were just not relatable, and pop songs were low on the details so that they appealed to as broad an audience as possible.
Radio shows, on the other hand…it was like an entire show—all on the radio! There were segments, there were recitations, there were skits. And there were sound effects, too! It wasn’t just the dialogue part of a story, it was all of the other little sounds that went into it as well. If they could add weather effects and smells, it would be absolutely perfect. Teo loved listening to the radio and the radio programs that Elienne and Callessa enjoyed. He sat on the edge of his seat listening to them.
One evening, during a break between segments, he heard his new mother’s voice reach out to him. “Enjoying it, Histeol?”
Histeol smiled. “Very much. I wonder how hard it is to put one of these on?”
“You need sound effects,” Cal said from her chair. She sounded engrossed—the sound of flipping pages implied that she was checking out a magazine or catalogue. “And some really good recording equipment. Other than that, I don’t think it would be hard.”
Teo grinned. “Maybe I could just work on the scripts for now—figure out the equipment and sound effects later.” There was no response from either of his family members. “You know—for shows?”
There was another pause, then Elienne said, “I think you would make a marvelous radio host, Histeol.”
“I’d listen to your shows,” Cal said. “Knock ‘em dead, little brother.”
Teo smiled and sat deeper into the chair. Someday he’d host his own radio show, or even just write for it. Someday, he’d be the one bringing joy to people.
