Hence, Koen.
The stage lighting fuzzes the crowd behind the cameras, but the tallest outline, the cross-armed, stern one, can only be him. I smile in his direction, fully aware that even if I could see it, there would be no response.
He’s so opposed to what I’m about to do, it’s almost funny. His disapproval vibrates through time and space and anchors me to this moment. Nothing else here feels real.
“You ready?” the interviewer asks, taking a seat across from me. She’s older. Elegant. Her scent betrays how disquieting she finds me, but her poker face is titanium solid. Honestly, I’m impressed. “That’s what the viewers at home are seeing now.” She points at the monitors. “An interview with the geneticist that I recorded yesterday.”
The road to this hothouse of a studio was paved with bu
