邮差
He called himself Jing,1 which was also what he named his ship.
To be honest, he didn’t understand the full meaning of the word. All he knew was that a great creature by that name had once lived in the ancient oceans. His life was too boring, so he’d thought that a unique name might dilute the repetitive dullness of his days. That was the general idea.
Jing was a postman—an interstellar postman.
Radio signals could travel through empty space and light signals could travel through seemingly incalculable distances, but they could only transmit cold, hard information. Materials, warmth, and smells—these were more important to humans. It would have been a pity if there was no way to deliver these.
Interstellar postmen like Jing had thus risen to the occasion.
In other peoples’ opinions, this line of work was very relaxing. If you wanted to, you could spend the whole trip in the cold storage chamber with the post and hibernate until you reached your destination. You could also go through the letters and read them using a see-through device. Although the matter of whether this violated privacy rights had been heavily debated in the Interstellar Tribunal, the practice was ultimately permitted. After all, not every postman wanted to hibernate. In any case, there were memory-wiping pills available at destination terminals. The postmen would swallow them in front of the mail recipients, and then it was like nothing had happened at all. Everyone was happy.
But Jing didn’t enjoy either of these methods of killing time.
What he did on every voyage was collect messages from the boundless universe.
Jing’s ship was fitted with additional antennae and signal receivers. They were extremely sensitive—he never missed a single message, even if it was only a short advertisement from a passing cruise ship.
As a result, the voyage records on Jing’s ship always stored more messages than those of other ships. Even though most of the messages were from unknown origins—strange codes claiming to offer planets for sale, messy signal lines in snowflake patterns, or even high-pitched screams that sounded like they came from horror movies—Jing liked to listen to them all. He thought of these scattered signals as lonely creatures roaming the universe. Though it seemed as if he were searching for them, in truth they were the ones seeking him out.
Because Jing had discovered this unexpected hobby, he found his job fascinating. On the side of his ship, he’d painted what he imagined a whale looked like. That massive, mythical creature bore an expression of indolent satisfaction, opening its mouth wide to swallow a golden ray of lightning.
Jing also delighted in his everyday operations. While other postmen lazily delayed taking off, Jing spread his glider wings and rushed out of the port; his satisfied, slightly off-key singing echoing through the darkness of space.
Jing was, without question, the happiest interstellar postman of his time.
If only it weren’t for what happened after . . .
The signal that changed his life appeared one afternoon. Jing was busy tidying up his storage, and he was unbearably tired.
He stretched, rubbed at his sore eyes, and prepared to turn off his receivers to go take a rest.
Suddenly, a signal broke through. Accompanied by red alarm colors and whining sirens, a line of text popped up on the receiver like an interrogation: “Reception confirmed? Yes or no?”
It was clear this signal had been sent deliberately—perhaps it was even a cry for help.
Jing didn’t dare delay. He hastily shook himself awake and hit “receive.”
The faint red display on the screen shuddered for a moment, then played a rather unfamiliar scene. Jing saw a house, though it didn’t look like the solar-powered homes he was used to. Standing in front of the house was a girl wearing a blue dress, her hair braided in pigtails. She waved at him, smiling adorably, and shouted: “Hey! Dear Mister Postman, is there any mail for me?”
She recited an address: “We live at Rose Star City number 475, unit 901. My name is Lan Jing.2”
As he watched her, Jing’s confusion turned into astonishment.
He’d been delivering parcels across the stars for quite a long time. But he had never encountered someone sending a message directly to a postman.
This gave him a joy he’d never felt before. In the vast, boundless universe, someone had finally noticed his existence.
He rushed into the rear hold of the ship and looked through all of the parcels, then used the see-through device to examine their contents. Then he carefully checked a second time. But he saw nothing addressed to Rose Star City, not anything addressed to the signal origin location.
Disappointed, he sat down in front of the receiver. He deliberated for a while, and then switched on the camera.
He patted his cheeks and managed to squeeze out a smile. “Dear little girl, next time I’ll definitely have a letter for you. Also, thank you for sending me a message.”
The girl’s smiling face really was too lovely. Jing couldn’t forget it. When he reached the destination terminal, he even refused to swallow the memory-wiping pill. His client agreed with some difficulty, but he didn’t seem very happy about it.
To tell the truth, if this had been the only time, then Jing could have only called it a rare and happy chance encounter in the universe.
Afterward Jing continued his life as a courier. But when he passed through that part of space again, he received another signal.
That little girl had grown up a bit. She still wore the same hairstyle and outfit, but she seemed to have left childhood behind. One thing that hadn’t changed was her expectant smile.
“Hi, dear Mister Postman, do you have any mail for me?”
Her address was still the same. “We live at Rose Star City number 475, unit 901. My name is Lan Jing.”
Jing realized that this signal was not a coincidence. That little girl was sincerely waiting for a message.
Just as before, he hurried to the storage hold, but after searching, he still found nothing for her.
And just as before, he recorded a video reply. This time, it occurred to him that the girl might be disappointed.
His spirits rarely fell like this. Before he reached his destination, he’d asked everyone he knew about Rose Star City.
Everyone seemed to have heard of it, but nobody knew for sure what it was. Some said that it was a city controlled by machines where humans didn’t have to work. Others said it was a city of environmentalists whose habitants lived pastoral lives of farming and weaving. Some even said that it was a ghost city, where only one little girl lived.
This last speculation made Jing shudder. She must be so lonely.
“You should take the memory-wiping pill, Jing.”
He heard a cacophony of noise around him; the voices of his delivery’s many recipients.
“We understand that girl is very important to you, but you’re an interstellar postman. You need to take responsibility for reading our mail.”
“Would you mind waiting just for a moment?” Jing asked them. “I just want to figure something out.”
He sat down. It felt like he’d realized only then that even though he’d put great effort into his collections, and even though he’d tried very hard to act as if his solitary travels were joyful and merry, the solitude of being an interstellar postman had still left a deep impression on him. That little girl’s appearance had torn through his pretensions; now his longing, his worries, and his escapism had nowhere to hide.
If he didn’t forget, how could he keep on being a postman? How could he keep on living?
This feeling was too awful. Jing swallowed a wad of saliva and gulped down the pill.
Afterward, Jing resumed life the same way he had lived it for so long before. He cheerfully redecorated the outside of his ship as the legendary whale took on new forms in his imagination. As always, he spread his glider wings and took off ahead of schedule, singing every time he took to the skies. His songs sounded just as cheerful as before, but those who knew him well thought that something about his voice had changed—either something had been added, or something had been taken away.
But what could it be? No one could say for sure.
Time flew past. In a blink, Jing the postman retired, and so did his ship.
He had never wanted to trade the ship away. But he had aged, and he didn’t have the strength to fight for his old partner. He didn’t even have the energy to decorate it anymore. He could only look on helplessly as the layers and layers of mystical creatures that he’d painted onto the ship’s exterior were scrubbed away one by one. The customized antennae and receivers he’d installed were dismantled. Bit by bit, Jing’s ship became a common vessel utterly lacking in personality.
He turned to leave. The maintenance worker called him back and told him that there were many materials still stored in the receiver. Did he want them? His aging mind, which had suffered the effects of too many memory-wiping pills, couldn’t remember what he had stored there. He decided to have a look.
Jing borrowed a transmitter from the courier station and, hands trembling, plugged it into the receiver.
The screen flashed red in warning. Then the little, pigtailed girl appeared.
She stood in front of the house, waving cheerfully.
“Hi, dear Mister Postman, do you have any mail for me? We live at Rose Star City, number 475, unit 901. My name is Lan Jing!”
“Hi, dear Mister Postman, do you have any mail for me? We live at Rose Star City, number 475, unit 901. The recipient is Lan Jing.”
“Hello, dear Mister Postman. You must be tired from your long journey. If you have any mail for me, please send it my way. I live in Rose Star City, number 475, unit 901. My name is Lan Jing. I’m the lady of the house now.”
Those two sentences kept appearing in different variations. They became increasingly courteous; increasingly polite. The girl with pigtails gradually turned into a girl wearing sportswear; a college student wearing a graduation camp; a bride in a white dress; and then a young wife, who gradually became the mother of a young girl . . .
Jing’s seeing and hearing had worsened with age. He had to turn the volume up as high as it would go, which attracted much attention from others.
The maintenance workers, the young new courier, and Jing’s former colleagues all came over one by one, discussing the messages as they watched.
“After all these years, she still didn’t receive any letters?”
“It looks like she wasn’t just waiting for any letter, but something from a specific person? But it’s hard to say . . . ”
“She was pleading so sincerely, but Jing took a memory-wiping pill every time. Ah, how heartless.”
They chattered loudly for a moment, airing every opinion under the sun.
Amidst the whirlwind of noise, Jing was silent. He didn’t speak a word as he stared at the recordings that he’d long forgotten, yet had deliberately preserved.
Then he suddenly jumped up and set off at a run on his old limbs.
“Jing! What are you doing?”
The maintenance worker from earlier gave a shout and chased him as he ran. “You’ve already retired, you can’t pilot the Jing. And if you use the ship for private, non-courier matters, you’ll be sent to the Interstellar Tribunal!”
“I know, I know, but I don’t have a choice.” Jing’s dentures had been shaken loose by the excitement, and they emitted a hissing sound as he spoke. He rushed into the station master’s office.
The maintenance worker’s words froze in his throat, and he fidgeted uneasily where he stood. He’d wanted to remind Jing that he was too old. Even if he found an interstellar travel company to take him to the girl right now, he might not survive the journey.
What happened next stunned everyone.
Jing didn’t challenge the interstellar travel age limit. He also didn’t risk breaking the law to pilot the Jing once again. In all seriousness, he made himself a “parcel” and handed himself over to the company, requesting that a courier send him to the minor planet where the signal had originated.
This indeed evaded all the possible risks and delays, but . . .
The voyage’s outcome was not surprising.
Jing reached that little planet. But his body couldn’t bear the heavy burden of space travel, and he passed away in the boundless universe.
As for the questions of whether that girl had received her precious message, and what exactly she was waiting for, the only witness in the affair—the courier who had delivered Jing—would only answer in vagaries.
More often, he chose to remain silent on the matter.
A long while passed. Then at last the young courier, after one too many drinks, told the whole story.
He’d felt uncomfortable about the trip from the start, so he’d accompanied Jing onto the minor planet.
What waited for them there was not the old house nor the smiling girl, but a sheet of vast, silent emptiness. That planet was an utterly lifeless world.
Jing dragged the courier along on a desperate search. They looked and looked, until they finally found it: sunken in the thick stardust was a tiny video recorder and signal transmitter.
A red light indicated the transmitter was still on. But it was now very faint, flickering on and off.
When he saw this, Jing gave a loud, hearty chuckle. He laughed and laughed; and then he didn’t move again.
Rose Star City was a place on a planet that had existed three hundred years ago.
This planet had been home to a civilization spanning a thousand years, but in the end, the ancient land had been destroyed by the impact of a giant meteorite.
The interstellar communication systems of that era weren’t that advanced, so the people of Rose Star City could only record their images along with distress signals and send them out to every small planet, hoping by some chance encounter, someone might come save them.
But the couriers now knew that their plan had ultimately failed.
“Too much time had passed,” said the young courier. “That thing had already eroded, so it only sent out half of the message . . . Jing only saw that girl growing up, but not her cry for help.”
The courier took a sip of his drink and shook his head helplessly. “In other words, the thing that engrossed Jing all his life was at best a message in a bottle . . . and was written three hundred years ago, so it’s practically an antique.”
Everyone fell into a silence that could have been for the girl, for Jing, for the destroyed planet, or for something else—loneliness. Couriers could never escape the loneliness that pervaded their lives every hour and every second.
Then the young courier began to toss back shots, as if deliberately fleeing from the subject.
The maintenance worker from before was now also an old man. He stood up, excused himself from the table, and slowly strolled out of the ship’s cabin. The ship once named the Jing was parked outside. He couldn’t see any traces of the creatures that once decorated the ship. But the Jing, sitting quietly, seemed ready to spread its glider wings and take off at the slightest sound.
The maintenance worker remembered the night Jing had decided to become a postman. He had looked at Jing, who was leaning against his ship, so excited that he’d started coughing. He couldn’t help but shake his head and ask, “Is it worth it?”
Jing had only given a slight smile and confidently signed his name on the death waiver.
The maintenance worker then thought to the night when the young new courier’s ship had first set sail. Everyone had heard Jing’s singing again that night—that gleeful voice resounding toward the universe. Though it was a bit raspy, it was just as pleasant as always.
Something had returned to that voice. Now it lacked nothing.
In that moment, the maintenance worker thought, Jing had been an interstellar postman who no longer feared anything.
Whatever it was that had returned, it contained truth, loneliness, and death.
It also contained love.
Originally published in Chinese at www.wcsfa.com (Kehuan Xingyun Wang), August 2016.
FOOTNOTES:
1 - In Chinese, “Jing” (鲸) is the character for “whale.”
2 - In Chinese, “Lan Jing” (蓝鲸) means “blue whale.”