Satellite Love

by Genki Ferguson

  “How about I give you my prayer. That way you can have two,” he said.

  I nodded my head in reply, worried that if I tried to speak my voice would crack. When I closed my eyes, mittened hands joined in prayer, the dull bass of the faraway bells stopped ringing.

  I wanted Soki. I wanted friends. I wanted Grandpa to remember how to pray, Mr. Hamada to come back to Sakita. I wanted to stop asking for things I’d never have. I wanted proof that there was someone, up above, watching over me.

  I wanted the LEO.

  I opened my eyes, gave my final bow, and turned away from the shrine.

  “Well?” Grandpa asked.

  “I only used one of my prayers,” I said, putting my hand back into his. The pressure of his grasp comforted me.

  “How come?”

  “I’m saving the other for a rainy day.”

  We walked the rest of the way home, retracing footprints in the snow, the bells now silent and waiting permission to strike 108.

  Once we reached our front door, rather than march directly inside, I stood for a moment, neck craned to the sky. Grandpa saw this and looked up as well, curious as to what I might be staring at.

  “There are so many stars out tonight,” he said.

  I squeezed his hand a little in response. Grandpa lowered his gaze from the heavens and watched me for a moment as I attempted to find the LEO above.

  “ ‘I’m perfectly happy today,’ ” I said, repeating Grandpa’s words. “It’s important for me to remember this.”

  Grandpa smiled. He was looking at me again, with that empty expression that always makes me fall apart. “And what might your name be, young lady?”

  I felt my hollow grow a little deeper. I opened the door, still trying to hold on to that fleeting happiness, and led Grandpa to his room. He went to sleep almost immediately. After taking off my winter gear, I trudged up the stairs to my stuffy hideout, the telescope in wait.

  Tonight, the world was getting a fresh start, launching into a new era, and I would do the same. My manifesto had been working, and fortified by the shrine visit, I knew that my belief in the LEO had never been stronger. Or perhaps more accurately, I had never needed my belief to be stronger.

  It was time to continue signalling to the satellite. I took out my flashlight, hands fumbling with a desperation I hadn’t realized was there, and began pulsing it into the sky. Sure enough, when I peered through my telescope, the LEO was arcing high above, just beyond my reach.

  And yet, nothing had changed. There were no messages coming down to Earth. I could feel that same doubt bubbling up inside me, threatening my entire mission, and I attempted to quell it by doubling my efforts. I started signalling faster, more urgently, Morse code messages flashing into the heavens. I would stay awake well into the morning if I needed to, would refuse to move until I received my reply.

  I stayed by my telescope, dutifully peering beyond. Then, something broke.

  The LEO’s routine blips became more irregular, no longer following their predictable rhythm. He was moving more slowly as well, perhaps resisting his orbit. It was almost as though he had received my messages, and was sending a response.

  In the distance, I heard the 108th bell ring. The twenty-first century had arrived. I turned off my flashlight and went to sleep, knowing that in the morning, the LEO would be down here on Earth with me, not as a satellite, but as a person.

  SATELLITE

  IT WAS STRANGE TO be human, or at least to have a human form. I’ve never heard anyone talk about this, but a body is an incredibly heavy thing. I had only known the feeling of flying above the Earth, weightless, and now I was anchored in place, gravity pulling at all of my 62 kilograms with an unrelenting duty. Just sitting up made me sweat. One wrong move and I might sink into the world.

  It was early morning, and I was on Earth rather than in space, waiting inside an eerily familiar bedroom. The room was smaller than I’d imagined, only large enough to fit a single futon, a couple bookshelves, and a desk. The ceiling was slanted rather than flat, coming down in sharp angles at the sides; a consequence of being on the top floor, I suppose. Everything felt more claustrophobic as a result. The hardwood floor looked like it hadn’t been swept in ages, and tucked in the corner, away from the sun, was that mound, its size casting an ominous aura over the room.

  I was sitting at the foot of Anna’s futon, watching my creator sleep, her eyes flickering in the midst of a dream. I took the chance to examine her features—like everything else in the room, she, too, appeared alien up close. I wondered what would happen once she woke and we finally met.

  Dawn was starting to lose its grasp on Sakita as I became more used to my human body. I was nearly able to grip a pencil at that point, but found my form prone to suddenly fading away with little warning. One moment I would be solid material, the next I would be no more than a ghost. I was like a sentient claw machine, albeit playing for the worst prizes imaginable: a pencil, an eraser, a hair clip. I entertained myself as I waited for Anna to wake up, clumsily mimicking the expressions I had seen hundreds of times before. Pursing my lips to imitate sadness, squinting to imitate doubt. When I closed my eyes, it was as though the world stopped existing.

  I felt I was committing some grave blasphemy just by being in the same room as Anna, despite not knowing how I’d been brought down to Earth in the first place. I knew I only existed thanks to Anna, and while my gratitude was immense, I wondered how I could properly convey this to her. I was face to face with my creator, an opportunity countless humans would die for. Yet, on top of this divine admiration, there was a feeling of affection, too. Among the 6.1 billion people on the planet, it was Anna alone who’d returned my gaze, the only person to express any sort of interest in my solitary life up above. Now, rather than hundreds of kilometres, I was no more than two metres away from her. The air was sweet with the smell of her sweat.

  You can tell a lot about a person by how they wake up. How long after opening their eyes do they sit up? Do they kick off their sheets, or slowly push them aside? What kinds of sounds do they make? What kinds of grunts, yawns, groans? It seemed to me as though everything private about a person could be revealed in those precious first moments.

  When Anna awoke she lay on her side, completely still, eyes open, watching me. She moved her gaze up and down, methodically examining every part of my new body as though she were an engineer admiring her work. What surprised me was Anna’s distinct lack of surprise; she didn’t find my sudden appearance unusual in the slightest.

  “You’re the LEO I called down, correct?”

  “I think so.”

  Her voice didn’t falter once, despite her waking just moments before. Mine, on the other hand, wavered considerably. A full existence without use will do that.

  Anna remained lying on her side, and I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to come closer or leave her room. I opted for the middle ground and stayed where I was, sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor like an insecure yogi. She was silent, searching my face for something I couldn’t promise was there. To soothe myself, I began counting the small, meaningless things in her room: three sickly house plants (all succulents), thirty-two CDs (all punk rock), twelve scented candles (all sandalwood).

  “You’re more than a week late. Why didn’t you come earlier?”

  “I didn’t realize you were calling me,” I said, searching her face for any sort of positive response. “I’m not sure how I got here to begin with. In all honesty, I’m not even sure what I am.”

  Silence.

  “I thought I was a satellite,” I stammered, compelled to prove myself, “but now I’m a human, and to be frank with you I’m not sure if I even exist and—”

  She sat up abruptly, cutting me off, as though I were on trial for an offence I wasn’t aware I’d committed.

  “You don’t exist,” she said.

  I
was taken aback. “That’s hardly an icebreaker.”

  “You’re imaginary, a coping mechanism used to deal with intense isolation. I made you up.”

  I didn’t have a response for this. I hadn’t exactly anticipated being confronted with my own non-existence so suddenly. And yet here I was, arguing with a girl I’d just met but had loved for months, over whether I was even real. It was absurd.

  “What’s my blood type?” she challenged.

  “AB-positive.” The answer rolled off my tongue naturally, taking me by surprise.

  “What’s your blood type?”

  I didn’t know. How could I know her blood type but not my own?

  Anna was terrifyingly insistent that I was not real, and that my actions held no consequence. Reverse solipsism: everyone except myself exists. But how did I even know what solipsism was? Weeks later, out of boredom, I would flip through one of the books strewn across her room and find the definition myself. It matched word for word with what was in my head, forcing me to confront a terrifying possibility: What if I only knew what Anna knew? What if any thought I had, any song I loved, any turn of phrase I employed, had to have passed through Anna first? Sadness mixed with fear and now this.

  She continued to hound me from her bed, as if wanting to drive me into an existential crisis. I didn’t know how to respond—we weren’t exactly on even ground. My first human encounter and already I was being forced to defend myself. Sixteen years of experience versus thirty minutes. What a world.

  “If you made me up, then how could you recognize it? If you’re delusional enough to create an imaginary friend, you wouldn’t be self-aware enough to realize it.” Check and mate.

  “Realizing and understanding are two very different things, Leo.”

  I noticed that she had decided on my name, and was silently disappointed. Leo didn’t seem to fit me very well at all. I saw myself more as a Voyager or an Apollo.

  Anna got out of bed without a word and undressed, slowly, self-consciously throwing a glance or two my way. Was she trying to seduce a figment of her imagination? She moved awkwardly, pretending she had done this hundreds of times before, and ended the performance by slipping into a short, checkered skirt and a light-blue hoodie. A bizarre combination.

  “There’s a good café I know nearby; let’s continue our debate there.” She signalled for me to follow, not caring that I’d been stunned by her sudden nudity. “By the way, you’re not my imaginary friend, you’re my imaginary boyfriend.”

  GRANDFATHER

  I CAN’T SEEM TO find my keys. It’s the strangest thing. I’m worried I’m getting forgetful, though Yoshiko tells me it’s normal for someone my age. Still, I can’t help but worry that my case is especially severe.

  For example, I’m not sure where I am. This brightly lit Westernized home is giving me a headache. Such an American idea of beauty—it’s ridiculous. The Japanese home thrives in shadows, with dimly lit corners for the eyes to come to rest. There’s a reason why we still use paper doors; it’s to preserve the beauty of natural light flitting through. Here everything is blown out—there’s no depth, no mystery, no elegance. A Japanese home should look like a Japanese home, I say.

  How did I get here? I recall having just woken from a nap, but I don’t remember much before then. In the back of my mind, I hear a faint ringing, like a distant memory, but it slips from my grasp. A few photos above the Westernized fireplace show Yoshiko, and I can see her shoes by the front door, too. When did my little girl get so old?

  I hear a voice coming down the stairs, posing questions to someone whose responses are too quiet for me to hear. I’m not sure if I should hide or not, afraid that I’ve stuck my nose where it doesn’t belong. At first, I think this person could be Yoshiko, but their voice is too low, and they mumble quite a bit too.

  I decide at the last moment to hide, kneeling behind the kitchen island. The counter is some sort of bleached laminate. I’ll never understand this Western obsession with making everything white. These artificial materials repel light back to the viewer, light that a more tasteful cherrywood or granite would absorb.

  I can tell I’m getting carried away. Yoshiko always says I have a habit of working myself up.

  I take a tentative peek around the corner of the island and see a young woman puttering about. She’s trying to find her wallet, she says. She must have thrown it somewhere. Who is she speaking to? No one is answering her, yet she leaves gaps in the conversation for another to fill.

  Is this some sort of Western game I’m not aware of? Maybe it’s some variation of hide-and-go-seek. Hunched just out of sight, I suddenly worry. Have I forgotten that I’m playing this game, too? Is that why I’m here?

  From my angle I can make out a few details about the girl. She seems of mixed race, which would explain this obscene home, yet she still has a Japanese manner. Despite how I feel about these Westerners, this child seems different. It’s in the way she moves. She treads lightly, as though walking across ice, conscious of keeping her back straight. Like a bunraku puppet doll, controlled by something unseen. Her pale skin is reminiscent of one, as well. There’s a kind of cloudiness underneath the surface, an innate apprehension you don’t see anywhere else.

  I decide to stay hidden, convinced now that I’m not a part of this game, that I shouldn’t be here. Perhaps this girl is a performer of sorts. She motions to the air occasionally, as if expecting it to respond, though I can see with absolute certainty that there’s no one with her. It must be a difficult scene she’s rehearsing. Her performance is beautiful, untinged as it is by the presence of an audience.

  She checks under a bookshelf and finds her wallet. A childish thing, fading floral patterns covering the canvas. The wallet is so at odds with the way she looks, I assume it holds a sentimental value. A gift perhaps. She slips the wallet into her pocket, turns to the air, and says “How small did the Earth seem?” to no one in particular. There is no response.

  She eventually leaves, but even after the door closes behind her, I can’t relax. Instead, I remain crouched behind the island, still transfixed by her performance. I wonder what kind of play that young woman is acting in. I could barely make out what she was saying, yet I could tell it was done with complete conviction. That in that moment, she fully believed the play was her reality. And to think this was just rehearsal! It felt too real, as if a world best left untouched had been disturbed. I shudder to think what the actual production will look like.

  SATELLITE

  THE CAFÉ ANNA BROUGHT me to was not as close as she’d said. In fact, it required a twenty-minute train ride across town. As we walked towards the station, she barely said a word. I might have been unnerved by her silence had this new and intensely close-up, street-level view of the world not demanded all of my focus. Even putting one foot in front of the other, adjusting for uneven pavement, wind, and inclines, was proving to be a challenge. I was starting to realize just how inefficient the human body really was.

  “I need to take a quick detour,” Anna said, stopping in front of a near-deserted shopping mall.

  The path she took me down turned sharply from a shopping development into a grove of ginkgo trees and thick-stemmed bamboo. All sound rushed out of this pocket of nature, save for the faint trickling of water. Snow was once again melting atop the forest floor, and a wet musk filled the air. The dirt beneath my feet came as a relief as well, providing a softer landing than asphalt should I suddenly forget how to walk. I was impressed such a place could exist so peacefully inside a city. Farther down the path I could see stone stairs painted with moss and slush, leading to shrine gates in the distance. On either side were sculptures of lions. Or were they dogs? I couldn’t tell.

  “Aren’t we going to stop here?” I asked.

  “That’s a Shinto shrine. What I’m looking for is Buddhist,” she replied.

  We walked past the shrine, Anna not casting so mu
ch as a glance in its direction before we eventually emerged from the other side of the copse. I was disappointed to find myself back in industrial Japan, its artificial lights and smells overwhelming me. Is it hypocritical for a satellite to want to remain in nature? Either way, thanks to this new sensory overload, I had absentmindedly walked ahead of Anna, who was far behind, having stopped to kneel down by a dingy yakitori stall advertising cheap beef tongue.

  As I walked back towards her, I saw that she was crouched in front of a small stone statue: an effigy of a smiling bald man in monk’s robes, hands joined in prayer. At the base of Anna’s feet was a small pile of stones, picked up from the melting snow, that she was attempting to balance one on top of another. She turned to face me, the sudden movement sending the entire stack tumbling.

  “I’m helping Jizo,” she said, motioning towards the granite monk. The owner of the stall paid her no notice, too busy fanning barbeque smoke from his face.

  Jizo? “He’s a friend of yours?”

  She smiled softly, maybe even a little sadly. “No, he’s a bodhisattva. The guardian of children.”

  I pretended to know what a bodhisattva was and nodded knowingly. Although Anna knew everything I knew, it didn’t appear to work the other way around.

  “When kids die they get sent to the Sanzu River,” Anna explained, possibly sensing my confusion. “There, they have to pile stones until they’re ready to reincarnate. Jizo patrols the river, encouraging them and making sure no demons kick their towers over. Regular people like me can ease their burden by adding stones, too.” Anna went back to her stack, rebuilding the tower she had just toppled.

  I looked around. “Is the river near here?”

  “Nope,” she said. “It’s not on Earth. It’s in the afterlife, I think, or maybe the celestial realm.”

  The celestial realm. I wondered if I could have seen this Sanzu River from the heavens, or if even then it was out of reach.