bestselling author JET FERST interviewed about his bestselling work of fiction: THE MICHELANGELO MEMORANDUM

The tv studio was humming.... the anchor, in her mid 30s sat upright in her chair during a commercial break, daydreaming about her impending holiday to Tahiti.... once this next interview was out of the way, she'd drive straight to the airport and rendezvous with her husband there.... her mother would take care of her children in the meantime.... she hadn't had a holiday in fully a year.... she could feel the sand under her toes, the waves on the beach, the smell of salt air, hear the ukuleles playing, feel herself swinging in the hammock under a parasol as a waiter brought her a pena colada

'Sandy, coming back in four, three, two, one...' said her floor manager to her as he counted the numbers down on his fingers as per their ritual...... she looked straight ahead at the camera, it's little red light was on, indicating it was the active camera and it was pointed right at her as usual.... she read from the teleprompter although she didn't really need to for this last interview, she had her own notes anyway, and anyway, she suspected he would be doing most of the talking by far, she'd just have to prod him a little if he got lost for words

'Finally tonite, we're talking to JET FERST, the award winning author of the bestselling fictional work: 'The Michelangelo Memorandum',' Sandy said, she looked straight into the camera as she did so, just like she did hundreds of times before. The red light on her camera flashed once, indicating the vision mixer in the control room would be switching to a different camera in a moment and that was her cue to blink and look at her guest which involved moving her head to the left 45 degrees, however the camera would be off her and on JET.

JET didn't say anything but just nodded so Sandy opened up with some small talk and then looking down at her notes, there was a card mixed in from a board game she'd been playing with some of her friends the night before: Pictionary, it was a dramatic game that involved acting out events without using words. As a joke, someone had written: 'Are you a dick'ead?' on a piece of paper used for making notes in the game, and somehow, this piece of paper found itself mysteriously and inexplicably mixed in with her notes for her work, by some kind of horrible miracle it seemed, worse of all, she mechanically read the note without stopping herself, as she expected them to contain some kind of relevant question to JET as posed by her producer, Sampson.

'Are you a dick'ead?' she asked in her full and normal journalistic voice to Jet. The pronunciation was pretty much the same as the word dick'head but without the 'h' pronounced. Wow, how just a moment can ruin a person's career. Although she was adept at keeping her face and emotions stony grave, like a Chinese soldier at a military parade, already her mouth was drying out and her palms becoming sweaty, her heart skipped a beat then gave a big thud to indicate it would carry on, she remembered the scandal in San Francisco after that big Korean plane went down, how the newsreaders read the fake jokey names of the Pilots on the air, Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow, how heads rolled. Now her head would roll, she would be working for some dinky radio station in Alaska, her aspirations to work on National TV squashed. She sat there, not knowing what to do, then Jet spoke, well first, in fact, he gave a delighted laugh, then spoke:

'Yes, I am,' said Jet, it turned out he was impressed with the anchor's learning, 'actually for my next book i'm researching the notion of diceide (Jet pronounced dick'ead almost the same as the anchor but the final -ed- had a very slight variation to it) as it was originally meant by the Roma people that are purported to have migrated to Europe twelve thousand years ago from India, in conjunction with an important heirloom of Michelangelo's that did the rounds of the Balls of Europe during the Rococco period.....'

Bla, bla, bla, on and on went the pudgy, bald little man. Beautifully though, the anchor realized she was saved, she was even cultured, amazing, who knew there was a Gypsy word 'diceide' that meant 'seeker' or 'seeker of light or truth' and that it sounded just like 'dick'ead', obviously Jet did, and now he was telling the world about it, he positively loved her for asking him if he was a dick'ead. The anchor's sense of relief made her feel like the gazelle, suddenly set upon by wolves, that leaps in an almighty leap over a riverbed chasm, leaving the wolves behind, un-befitted by Nature to make the jump. She felt like the Texans running back who makes the Hail Mary pass with seconds left on the clock after vaulting over a defender by the end zone; she felt like Jesus after He raised Lazarus from the dead. Already she was doing her special crab-dance in her mind, shuffling from left to right and right to left, flapping her arms around, just time for the fat lady to sing now she thought, whoop I got your boyfriend, whoop I got your boyfriend, she sang to herself merrily. Her training and poise had served her well, no noticeable change had come over her appearance from her initial blundered question til now. Sandy glanced over at her producer who looked impressed. Maybe this could lead to a quicker promotion, she thought.