THE DISTANCES LIFE TRAVELS to find other life.
From the first prokaryote battling the wild seas of prehistoric Earth to hominids acquiring their first crude tools; from Neanderthals scratching the likeness of their world onto cave walls with red and yellow ochre to the first Russian satellite (weight: eighty-three kilograms) orbiting around Terra and pulsing its exhilarating beeps to Earth’s radios; from the first Soviet phantom spacemen sent by the motherland to die nameless to the first men pinning flags to extraterrestrial surfaces (yes, these glowing rocks now belong to us); from the Hubble telescope photographing the first worlds beyond our own (could they ever be ours?) to the ecstasy of finding life’s greatest bacteria sustainer, H2O, on the surfaces of planets mercilessly teasing our imaginations; and finally to the first man-made Voyager exiting the cozy luxuries of our very own solar system. Life will always travel to find other life.
And there was me. Jakub Procházka, sole crew member of shuttle JanHus1, who could sweep these discoveries off the table as if they were merely the insignificant crumbs of a bygone era.
It had been six days and eighteen hours since I watched the creature flee. I found comfort in its mind visits, despite their invasiveness—the constant ache around my temples preserved my belief that I would see it again.
Earth was now a shining point deep within the heavens, a home reduced to a unit of punctuation. Once a day, I focused my telescope to remind myself of the blues and whites awaiting me upon my return, a planet willing to sustain me and those I knew. In comparison to these magnifications of my planet, Venus seemed quite dull and every bit as hostile as its never-ending thunderstorms and volcanic explosions, its surface a deceptively still malt of sand and rock. The planet was pale and static when viewed through the thick haze of cloud Chopra, still two weeks away and thus appearing motionless, though daily readings offered proof that the cloud was continuing to collapse on itself.
Every day now, my progress toward the cloud took over the news cycle, and the public relations frenzy over my mission was at its peak. The New York Times ran a six-page profile detailing the actions of my father, the regime’s hero, the betrayer of the people. It was a fine essay on the history of the country (I wondered whether the Times had ever given my country the time of day before) combined with irrelevant and condescending comments on my life as a rags-to-riches boy from a small country with a big country’s moxie. Media outlets all over the world took up the task to describe me to their respective populations as if they were describing a friend. A Norwegian starlet, touring Hollywood for a new major film, declared me her number one celebrity crush. My government PR team—most of whom I had never met, and who looked like they’d just obtained their real estate license—toured Europe to speak about my bravery, the importance of keeping Space exploration alive, and my preference regarding boxers versus briefs. Central forwarded emails from entertainment publicists in bulk, offering to represent me, to sell my life story rights to film producers, biographers, and the occasional desperate novelist.
It wasn’t really so long ago that people had spit on my family’s gate. Now they wanted to exchange money for what that name represented, perhaps offer the role of my father to an up-and-coming serious character actor looking to break into the major awards scene after portraying a series of multilayered, morally ambiguous white men in independent films.
Every day I continued to receive emails from Petr outlining the detailed schedule of tasks to complete before reaching my target. Filter testing, sensor cleaning, a more rigid exercise program to prepare me for possible emergency protocols, video chat events to satisfy the sense of ownership and pride of the taxpayers. I performed these tasks dutifully but without much excitement. All I could think about was the creature, its weight, its voice defying sound waves; or Lenka, Central’s inability to find her, the silence, my resentment building up against her despite my best efforts. The pursuit of Chopra seemed ill-timed, perhaps even no longer worth the time and currency in the face of terrestrial intelligent life. But Chopra was ahead nevertheless, visible and life-altering to Earthlings, while the creature had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and these mild headaches, the lingering proof of its presence, were beginning to feel self-inflicted. Both Lenka and the creature had abandoned me to my mission. My flesh attended to the menial tasks only with dry professionalism, while my mind wandered everywhere, anywhere, once manic and once passive, a buzzing fly making its way around a bedroom, torn between the freedom promised by sunlight seeping through a window and the endless buffet of crumbs scattered in dark corners.
Six days and eighteen hours after the creature’s disappearance, when I settled into my lounge chair to check email before sleeping off two hours of television interviews, I found an email forwarded by Petr from the ministry of interior. The attachment was a text file titled Lenka P. The text of the email:
A gift from Senator Tůma. State security agent has eyes on Lenka 4 u.
P.
The subject was first spotted while leaving the city hall building in Plzeň. In comparison to provided photograph #3, contrasts are immediately striking—hair cut short and dyed blood-orange red, some weight loss noted around cheekbones. Subject walked with confidence and a cell phone held to her ear. Phone records show the particular phone call was to her mother. Other calls have been made to a female friend in Prague and a male acquaintance in Plzeň. The male acquaintance will be followed up on shortly for possible involvement. The subject drove to a Hodovna supermarket, where she purchased half a kilo of lean ham, Camembert, three whole wheat rolls, two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Bounty bar. It appears that the subject shops for only one meal at a time. The subject’s evening activities were limited to watching reruns of The Simpsons, consumption of purchased goods, and writing in a notebook the agent has not yet been able to access. It is of note that the subject consumed an entire bottle of red wine and smoked seven Marlboro menthol cigarettes before going to sleep. As the agent was asked for light detail, he abstained from observing the subject’s bedroom activities, and did not enter the apartment. A view through the window revealed a neatly arranged living room with little furniture, no pictures or wall art, no books, a television placed upon a cheap table. The leather couch seems to be the only substantial piece of furniture in the house, suggesting the subject is not considering a permanent stay. Surveillance will resume…
I closed the email. Male acquaintance. Possible involvement. Perhaps the surveillance was a terrible idea—the guilt was not worth the minimal relief it provided. But the guilt of spying on Lenka did not overpower the sudden thirst this report had created in me to know her every meal, every conversation, every sigh that could possibly be dedicated to me, perhaps a scent that reminded her we used to wake up to each other. Anything could be a clue to her return.
Thanks, I wrote to Petr, this means everything.
I rubbed my sore eyes and shut off the Lounge lights, a habit from home I could not shake, despite having limitless solar energy at my disposal. Somehow, not flicking a switch still seemed wasteful.
I made my way to the kitchen for a midnight snack, and recoiled at the sight.
The open refrigerator door was, along with the counters, covered in thin blotches of chocolate spread. A white lid floated across the room, cracked in two, and in front of me, suspended in midair, was the creature, two of its legs scratching along the inside of the Nutella jar. The creature blinked a few times, then extended the jar toward me.
“I am ashamed,” it said. “I seem to have acquired an inability to resist impulses when it comes to Earth’s hazelnut.”
With a trembling hand, I recovered the jar. “You’re back.”
“After our unpleasant confrontation, I needed to meditate and reconsider. You must understand that our encounter is not a simple matter for me.”
I approached the pantry and removed a package of tortillas. I spread the hazelnut miracle on the tortillas and rolled them up into anorexic burritos. The creature’s legs quivered as it watched me, possibly a sign of excitement.
“I’m happy you’re here,” I said.
“Before my departure, you asked about a name. My kind has no need for distinguishing marks, identities. We simply are. Would it help you to call me by a name, skinny human?”
“It would.”
“Call me by a smart human’s name. The name of a philosopher king, or a great mathematician.”
I revisited the catalog of great humans, the astonishing chronicle shining through the stained pages of history. There were so many—enough to convert anyone, briefly, to a perky optimist—but the correct one presented itself with absolution, as if the ghost of Adam’s first naming were speaking through me. Once upon a time, Adam pointed at what then was nothing, and he declared, Rabbit. And thus nothing became a rabbit.
“Hanuš,” I said.
And thus nothing became Hanuš.
“What has he done?” Hanuš asked.
I offered the burrito. With a grin, Hanuš accepted it between his teeth. He chewed with his lips and eyes closed, the bottom of his belly swinging from side to side as he emitted a low-pitched grumble resembling the sound of a large dog begging for treats. I was not sure why I had taken to calling him a he, as there was no sign of genitals.
“He constructed the astronomical clock in Prague. Orloj,” I said. “Later the city hired thugs to stick hot iron rods in his eyes, so that he would never build another. With blood dripping from his sockets, Hanuš reached inside the clock and interrupted its functions with a single flick of his hand. No one could fix the clock for the next hundred years.”
“He was an astronomer.”
“Yes. An explorer. Like yourself.”
“I will be called Hanuš.”
The creature settled on the floor, suddenly unaffected by zero gravity. He extended a leg toward me, his lips spread into a wide smile, regaining their previous bright red color. I touched the pointed tip of the leg, felt the hard sleek shell beneath the hairs. The tip was hot, like a freshly poured cup of tea. I made two more burritos.
“Why did you choose me?” I asked Hanuš.
“I have surveyed Earth from its orbit, skinny human. I have studied your history and learned your languages. Yet, having accessed all knowledge, I do not seem to understand. My original intent was to study you for a day or two, observe your habits. But access into your memory trapped me. I wished to know more, always. The great human specimen, an ideal subject.”
“If you say so.”
“Your question, of course, is what you can receive from me.”
“A hair sample. Blood sample. Anything you can give. The greatest gift would be for you to come to Earth.”
“Humanry does not inspire the trust required,” Hanuš said. “There is no benefit for my tribe. And I regret I cannot give you a piece of myself. The body cannot be violated. It is the law.”
“Is there nothing we could exchange?”
“Let us begin with the two of us—the awareness of single beings—and see where our cohabitation takes us.”
I nodded, and bit into the burrito. Could Hanuš presently read my thoughts of desperation? Czech astronaut discovers intelligent life in Space. The Czech president is the first world leader to shake hands with the extraterrestrial, and gives him a tour of the Prague Castle. State heads overwhelm the Prague airport with their aircrafts and stand in line to meet the new life-form. Hanuš agrees to noninvasive research by Czech scientists, and his organic functions lead to stunning advances in biology and medicine. The question of God’s death is debated more hotly than ever. Atheists reaffirm his nonexistence; Catholics speak against the demon spreading Satan’s deception. I am at the center of it all. Hanuš refuses to travel anywhere without my company.
“Do not hope for such things, skinny human,” Hanuš said, “though I must ask—is it possible to share more of Earth’s hazelnut?”
After making another wrap, I slid my hand inside the jar and the tortilla package to confirm that the ingredients I had used for Hanuš were truly vanishing. Madness remained an option, despite everything. That night, I slept without needing medication.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, I was scheduled to engage with selected citizens in a videoblog session. The first barrage of questions was business as usual—my religious beliefs, my opinion on wasting taxpayers’ money on the mission, the workings of Space toilets. The last question of the day came from a young man, a university type, with thin-lensed eyeglasses and a lisp. His awkward throat-clearing reminded me of my old university friends, those manic beings racing through downtown Prague with backpacks and McDonald’s sacks in hand, always frantic, always fidgeting, their hyperactive disorders a manifestation of sincere beliefs that they will, they must change the world. As soon as the young man asked his question, Petr’s eyes widened in horror on the second screen. It was obvious that the young man had lied about his question during the prescreening. His inquiry was number one on Central’s blacklist.
“How often do you think about dying due to mission failure?” he asked. “Does it make you feel anxious, or numb?”
I looked at Petr. He fondled his forehead and nodded weakly. The question had been posed, and cutting the live feed would only make it obvious to the nation that secrets were being kept, narratives manipulated, public perception controlled. No, in a democracy, a raised question resonates with a never-ending echo. I was to answer.
“When I think about death,” I said, “I think of a sun-covered porch in the mountains. I take a sip of hot rum. I take a bite of cheesecake, and I ask the woman I love to sit on my lap. Then, death.”
The ease with which I invented this false fantasy sent guilt aches into my head. The moderator announced the end of the session and the screen went dark, and I imagined the young man being roughly escorted outside the Central headquarters. Petr apologized, but I waved it off. My duties to the public were fulfilled for the day, and I’d stripped into my underpants and set out to find Hanuš.
“Other humans look up to you, skinny human,” Hanuš noted over our next dinner session, “as if you are the Elder of your tribe.”
TIME BECAME CHOPPY, like a scratched cassette tape. Tasks took longer to complete, I was always behind schedule, and lyrics from songs whose rhythm I had long forgotten returned to my mind and would not leave. It was as if the closer proximity to Venus was bringing about time warps, slowing my brain functions to a crawl while harvesting the most useless of memories—information that had no practical purpose, those simple pieces of living, like scraps of fabric that do not become part of the dress and are left littering the floor.
I checked email obsessively. Another update from the ministry arrived:
… cannot determine whether subject is engaged in sexual relationship with male acquaintance, Zdeněk K., age 37, slightly overweight but good-natured and clean-faced with secure job as bank teller…
… apartment does not allow visual access to determine nature of meetings. Ministry is able to order deep surveillance, which would allow agent to access apartment when empty, gather evidence such as semen…
… subject purchased a package of peanuts and frozen stir-fry, resulting in a cleverly rigged kung pao…
… living a seemingly peaceful, ordinary life, as if she has taken on another identity…
… motives remain largely a mystery, deep surveillance recommended.
I replied with Deep surveillance a go, thanks. I gave Hanuš the rest of my dinner, sick with shame. She had run off and begun living elsewhere, anonymous, or so she had hoped. I felt no happiness over her seeming satisfaction, her peace in solitude—my mind was filled only with vanity, a thirst for reassurance, guesses about what I had done to drive her away. Could I get Central to force her to communicate with me? But such imposed communication wouldn’t be worth anything. No, I would have to be patient.
A FEW DAYS into our dinner tradition, Hanuš started following me around on my Chopra preparation tasks. As I ventured into the small chamber that contained Ferda, the cosmic dust collector and the crucial component of the Chopra mission, he asked whether he could assist. I unfastened the thick screws securing the outside shell of Ferda’s grating and removed the layer of metal protecting the finer design of the filters inside the bulky cube. Hanuš’s eyes traveled wildly between me and the grating I held, the tips of his legs touching the underside of his belly. He was always eager to help, to hold a piece of human technology. When I extended the grating toward him, with a smile he offered a leg as a temporary holder. I could see the filters now, pads covered in sticky silicone meant to capture particles, the pads themselves attached to rails that would eventually guide them back inside the ship for manual analysis.
“Skinny human, may I ask a question that could cause emotional distress?”
“You can always talk to me,” I told Hanuš.
“Why do you wish so strongly for a human offspring? I have discovered from your fictional television programming about soap that your species does not always utilize sexual intercourse solely for breeding.”
I removed the motherboard cover and it floated toward me like a heart still attached at the arteries.
“I guess it’s insurance against being a nobody,” I said.
“Well, it’s the opposite of being a somebody. Of having a body people can ask about.”
“The written records of your language do not explain the word well. Is every human not a somebody?”
I plugged my tablet into the motherboard and ran diagnostics. Ferda’s sensors and analytics were 100 percent functional. Hooray, Petr messaged via my e-tablet.
“It’s about doing things that matter,” I said. “It’s about loving things and being loved in return. Acknowledged.”
“It is love that counters your luxury of breeding by choice. I’ve had many pieces of offspring, skinny human. On every Eve, we shoot our seed into the vacuum, and wait to receive it as it showers down. The ceremony is law, and refusal to engage would mean death. One must shoot well into the distance to ensure one does not receive one’s own seed. This would cause severe embarrassment. The entire galaxy glows on Eve. We carry the smaller me’s until they hatch from inside our bellies. One does not miss an Eve. It is a very refreshing day. The consistency, the moisture, the solidity of seed. To you, an offspring is a choice, but the pleasure of this freedom is negated by the blackmail of love. If you love a partner, you crave to breed. Once you receive a human offspring, you are bound by love to care for its needs. Such attachments go against the concept of choice as defined by humanry, yet the planet of Earth is filled with these obligations. They define you.”
I replaced the grating and fastened the screws. These tasks—tinkering with Ferda, the diagnostics coming back at 100 percent—were supposed to be the climax before the climax, the great pleasure of the mission as I anticipated the dust cloud and its possibilities. But without Lenka, my excitement for Chopra was muted.
“Someday, I’d like to see your Eve,” I said.
“That won’t be possible.”
Hanuš never answered. In fact, he ceased speaking entirely, and seemed to disappear from the ship altogether until the next morning.
FOUR DAYS UNTIL my arrival at Chopra, between my many videoblogs and interviews with the Czech media (Mr. Procházka, what do you think of the man behind your mission, Senator Tůma, becoming prime minister of the country? Fantastic, I told them, or something like it. Will your wife be present at the national screening event of your triumph, or will she watch from the comfort of your home? Certainly, yes, she will be watching very closely, I told them, or something like it. As you await the encounter, can you tell us—do you have time to watch football? What did you think about the country’s performance in World Cup Latvia? What is the polite version of “I don’t give a shit about any of this, don’t you see I can’t say what I really want to say”?), Hanuš said, “I have observed you dreaming of death. There is a pleasure to it. A sense of relief. Why is this, skinny human?”
In place of an answer, I brushed my teeth and opened yet another disposable towel. I regretted not having kept track of how many I had used since the beginning of the mission. The compost container holding the soiled towels was too full to count, with the towels not producing enough bacteria to properly dissolve along with my underwear.
The question followed me around. I was mostly silent during my dinner with Hanuš.
“What is troubling you, skinny human?” he asked.
“You keep asking questions,” I said, “but you don’t tell me anything. Where you come from. What you think, feel. Where your planet is, and all of your… tribe. Yet you get to browse my thoughts whenever you please. Is that not troubling?”
He left without an answer. I watched a video of Norman the Sloth visiting a cooking show. Norman dipped the tip of his finger into Alfredo sauce and curiously licked it. The studio broke out in laughter.
The dreams Hanuš had mentioned not only continued but intensified, until I lost the ability to sleep at all, even with the help of medication. As I sat in the Lounge, a newly minted insomniac, and played solitaire on the Flat (the simplicity of the game soothed me; I no longer wanted to play complicated computer games, watch complicated films, or read the news; it all pertained to Earth and Earth did not pertain to me; I was a telecommuter), a shadow passed by the observation window, an interruption to Venus’s golden glow. I floated to the glass and again the object passed, this time so close I recognized a small canine snout, a white line leading up the dark forehead fur, ears perked up, black eyes wide-open and reflecting the blinking lights of infinity, a slim body bloated at the stomach, strapped into a thick harness.
I softly pulled the eyelid from my eyeball, felt a parting pop—a trick my grandmother taught me to determine whether I was conscious. I was awake, and this was real. It was her, the outcast of Moscow, the first living heroine of spaceflight, a street bandit transformed into a nation’s pride.
It was Laika the dog. Her body preserved by the kindness of the vacuum, denying the erosive effects of oxygen. I thought about attempting a spacewalk to recover the body, but I was tired, and too close to Chopra to receive approval from Central. Why bring her home anyway, to rot in the ground or lie next to Lenin’s embalmed corpse in Moscow’s catacombs when here she was the eternal queen of her domain? The comrade engineers cried for her as she died in agony, and the nation built her a statue to repent for its sins. Earth could provide her with no further honors, while the cosmos gave her immortality. The dryness had evaporated most of the water in her body, leaving her skin pale, her ears perked up. The individual hairs of her fur waved back and forth, like sea reeds. With the biological decomposition suspended, Laika’s body could float for millions of years, her physical form surpassing the species that had sentenced her to death. I thought of snapping a photo, sending it to Central, but we were not worthy of the honor of this witnessing. Laika’s eternal flight was her own.
The body vanished. When I turned, Hanuš was with me. I asked him whether he had seen her too.
“Would you truly care to know?” he said.
ANOTHER EMAIL ARRIVED from the ministry of interior. I hesitated before reading.
… subject is not, I repeat, not currently engaged in a sexual relationship, at least not at her place. Analysis of bedsheets, sofa cover, bathroom towels…
… no traces of bodily fluids…
… in the afternoon, the subject engaged in a phone call with a journalist who had managed to track down her new phone number. The subject claimed that she was on simple holiday, and colorfully asked the journalist to cease his harassment. After hanging up, the subject recovered the photograph of J. P. from underneath the bed and briefly covered her face with her hand. After this episode, the subject ordered pad thai from a local…
… based on Zdeněk K.’s deeply intimate relations with another man outside the bar Kleo, it is clear the subject was not engaged with Zdeněk K. on any level other than friendly and platonic, and thus J. P. can rest easy knowing that he was not abandoned for another man, at least not this one…
… eight o’clock in the morning, the subject walked to a local ob-gyn office. Agent was not able to penetrate the building in a manner that would allow eavesdropping on the conversation between the subject and the healthcare provider, but another sweep of the subject’s apartment revealed a positive pregnancy test wrapped in two Kleenex tissues. Might indicate subject is in the early stages of…
… agent sent urine sample for analysis to ensure it belongs to…
For a moment, I lost my vision. The black letters and white background spilled from the screen and coated my surroundings. I bent over and with a great force of will suppressed the bile building in my throat. I coughed and felt chunks of acidized tortilla at the tip of my tongue. Hanuš floated behind me.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I told Hanuš.
“The human cub could be yours, skinny human,” Hanuš offered.
“She wouldn’t be gone, then.”
“As I have learned from all self-reflecting resources of humanry, your motives are not drawn as line segments.”
“I don’t understand anything,” I said.
“The cloud of Chopra is days away, skinny human. All other things can be understood later.”
I responded to the report: Is the child mine? And can I get a picture of her?
A response came almost immediately: Will find out. What kind of picture?
A nice one, I wrote.
I pressed my middle finger onto the screen and closed the browser. In the kitchen, I counted my remaining whiskey bottles. Three.
Damn Central and their regulations. Dr. Kuřák’s asinine obsession with every human being as an alcoholic in training. The bottles were not enough, but I decided to drink properly instead of saving the goods to spread throughout the rest of the mission. Yes, wasn’t this the way to live in modern times, to consume and forget the rest? Civilization could fall apart any day now.
As I opened the bottle, Hanuš appeared behind me.
“Want some of this?” I asked.
“Ah, Earth’s spiritus frumenti. I have read much about its destructive effects.”
“You must’ve skipped the chapters on healing.”
I offered the bottle. Hanuš closed his eyes.
“I am afraid I have already sacrificed my impulses to hazelnut spread, skinny human. I do not desire further disruptions to my functioning.”
“More for me,” I said, and slurped.
“You grieve over your human love,” he said.
“Can I ask you something? Or do you already know?”
“I may or may not, but do ask. Your speech comforts me.”
“When I caught you in my room. Looking for the box.”
“Yes. The ash of your ancestor.”
“Why?”
Hanuš made his way out of the kitchen, and I followed him into the Lounge. There, he tapped on the computer screen, activating it.
“Please, do open the window,” Hanuš said.
I pressed the command button for the window cover. Ahead of us, the universe opened.
“I am interested in human loss,” Hanuš said. “It pertains to me and my tribe in a particular way.”
“What are the particulars?”
Hanuš turned toward me, and for the first time, his eyes split in two different directions—the left half looking directly at me, the other staring absently into Space.
“I have deceived you, skinny human, but I cannot any longer. I do not approve of the physiological sensations associated with such actions. I will not be bringing the news of Earth to my Elders. I cannot.”
Hanuš’s form sagged toward the floor. He gazed out the window with longing, reminding me of those weeks I had searched for my parents, as if eyesight alone could penetrate space and time and the edges of mortality. His was the look of not knowing, a look that seemed to be shared and recognized by all species.
“I have traveled through galaxies,” he said. “I have raced with meteor showers and I have painted the shapes of nebulas. I entered black holes, felt my physical form disintegrate with the chants of my tribe all around me, then appeared again, in the same world but an altered dimension. I traced the outlines of the universe and witnessed its expansion, a turn from something to nothing. I swam in dark matter. But never in my travels, or in the collective memory of my tribe, have I experienced a phenomenon as strange as your Earth. Your humanry. No, skinny human, you were not known to our tribe. I was not sent here by them. We considered ourselves the only spirits in the universe, privy to all of its secrets—but you were kept from us. As a human would say, I encountered you by pure coincidence. Not by mission.”
I slurped at the whiskey. Zero gravity or not, the burn was the same: gut full of cotton, blood vessel dilation, bliss. “Go on,” I said.
“Naturally, my curiosity led me to begin my research of humanry immediately. I have lived in your orbit for a decade of human years. I have visited a few astronauts, but all three either ignored me or prayed. The senseless chanting, I confess, repulsed me. I was content as a quiet observer until I learned of what you call comet Chopra.”
I strapped myself into the Lounge chair to make my drinking easier. My calves were numb. Hanuš was truly speaking about himself for the first time. I felt justified to drink the entire bottle. What better response to such progress?
“You see, this comet, it comes from my home world. I was not sure before, but now I am certain. In a way, the dust of Chopra is tied to all of us, and to the Beginning. I must see it, skinny human. I must see it before certain events unravel. Before they come for me.”
“Who? Please, tell me,” I said.
“The Gorompeds will come. I cannot say more. Not yet.”
The Flat monitor pinged. Another email from the ministry of interior, this time with an image attachment. I dropped the bottle, allowed it to travel, its contents spilling all across the Lounge, splashing over my technology, the window, Hanuš’s belly.
I opened the email.
… physician agreed to provide confidential patient information for a sizable payment. It is confirmed that the test was a false positive, and the subject is not pregnant, nor has she been since beginning to visit Dr.…
… then confirmed that this was a case of so-called phantom pregnancy, in which the subject’s body begins to react to the brain’s certainty about conceiving…
Of course. Miracles were nonsense, mere coping mechanisms. Despite the pain in my stomach, I was glad. Lenka would not have to face yet another complication in my absence. I’d left her with enough worry—it was best that growing a human being inside her body was not added to the list.
But I had hoped. I’d hoped that this was the reason for her leaving, that she needed to get away and think about the positive test, before returning and telling me that I was to be a father. It was a kind reassurance while it lasted.
I wished I could travel outside the ship and rip off the solar panels, along with their batteries, and hurl the container holding the water sourcing my oxygen out the door. I would shut off the lights, the hums, the view, and rest in darkness.
Think.
I studied the photograph of Lenka, taken in profile in the strange new bedroom as she prepared for bed. She wore black lace underwear and her face was turned away slightly from the camera. Late sunshine seeping through the curtains outlined her cheekbones and melted the shadows of her curves. My lips were dry. I should have been outraged, outraged with myself for allowing this violation of her, some government goon peering at her through the windows, snapping photos to keep my dread at bay. But the pleasure of the image overwhelmed me. I recalled what it felt like when the black lace grazed my cheeks, what it tasted like between my teeth when I was too eager for her to take the time to remove it.
Why had she gone? I asked the picture. Where have you gone, why have you left me behind? No, wait, I was the one who’d done that. I begged the picture not to let me wander. From the pixels that formed the artificial flesh of my love, I received no answer.