Satellite Love

by Genki Ferguson

  I call out “Yoshiko!” but she doesn’t respond. The house is so quiet. Now that I think about it, whose home is this? Yoshiko and I have lived in an apartment for the longest time, but here I am in a house I’ve never seen before. Some junk mail I find tells me I’m still in my hometown of Sakita, which is a relief.

  I start walking around the house, trying to recognize where I am, but everything is foreign to me. This is one of those trendy Western-style homes: there are no sliding doors, and the bathroom only has a shower, no bathtub! I can smell curry somewhere, so at the very least there’s still a Japanese scent. I don’t understand why this new generation insists on doing everything the American way. The hardwood floor makes my feet hurt; I’d take bamboo mats any day.

  I seem to recall Yoshiko telling me to watch her daughter some time ago, but there is no one else here. I was stunned to hear Yoshiko has a child. She said she’s had one for sixteen years! When I told her how surprised I was, Yoshiko said I needed to try harder with remembering, that it’s important to keep working on the sudoku she gave me. She sounded quite desperate as she said this, even exhausted, like we’d had this argument before. That’s about all I can recall: the sudoku and the way Yoshiko needed me to remember.

  I hadn’t been playing a joke—I just never realized I was a grandfather. Whenever could that have happened? I need to have a discussion with Yoshiko, meet this daughter of hers. But first I need to find out whose house this is.

  Despite being Westernized, there’s still a household shrine in the main living room. It feels familiar, somehow—the gold ornamentation, the embroidered scrolls. When I get closer to see who it’s dedicated to, I’m shocked to find that the photo inside is of my wife, Maiko! Who are the people that live here? And why have they put Maiko’s photo somewhere reserved for the dead? I’ll have to ask my wife the next time I see her. The sliced melons offered before the altar must have just been left there, as they show no signs of rot. There’s even a stick of incense, slowly burning out, filling the room with a faint musk.

  I walk into the kitchen. On the counter is a message, scrawled out in chicken scratch. Whoever wrote it must be younger, someone who neglects to take their calligraphy seriously. I debate not reading it, just out of principle, but pick it up all the same.

  Will be out for the day. I left you lots of leftovers in the fridge. If something happens, call the neighbourhood association or Mrs. Ito next door.

  Anna

  At the bottom of the note are some phone numbers, along with instructions on how to use the microwave and for how long. I don’t know who this Anna is, but somehow I can tell that this note was intended for me.

  There are photos on the fridge, but the people in them are all strangers to me. In one of the pictures I’m standing beside Yoshiko, but I can’t recall when it was taken. When did my sweet little one become a grown woman? I recognize her eyes, but she looks so, so tired. Yoshiko has her arms wrapped around another person, a sullen teenage girl who I’ve never seen before. The three of us are at a beach somewhere, but it must have been cold. I’m wearing that ugly green scarf Yoshiko is always trying to make me throw away. I can’t place where this beach is, and I don’t recall ever meeting this third person at all.

  Something about this young girl strikes me as eerie, unsettling. Her eyes are a little too far apart, as if someone had pushed each eye a half-centimetre farther away from the other. She appears mixed, too; maybe she’s part American. One of this younger generation who prefer Western culture to their own, I’m sure. No regard for tradition whatsoever. Yoshiko and I are staring right at the camera, properly, but this alien is gazing upwards, into space, intentionally looking away. What did she see off frame that was so interesting? I can see that she’s wearing Yoshiko’s old sunhat, so I wonder if maybe this is the daughter Yoshiko told me about. Is this who I’m supposed to be watching?

  Whose house is this?

  ANNA

  FROM FAR ABOVE, EVERYONE below almost looked like ants.

  I stared down at them from the roof of the school, people I would recognize at eye level rendered anonymous by distance. Some were ambling, enjoying the foreign weather against their skin, while others moved with purpose, collars hiked up, coats pathetically thin in the face of our freakish winter. Wet snow. Like you only get in the south.

  The tips of my fingers were numb, unable to properly grasp my now-flavourless korokke. The price of lunch-period isolation. The sharp cold of the metal railing cut through my blazer, leaving a brand across my stomach where I leaned over.

  Nobody had thought to clear off the roof, and I had to wade through ankle-deep snow to get to the edge. I was grateful for this snow, muffling the sounds of the city below my feet. The rooftops of the nearby shops and apartments were packed white, free of human footprints. It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine I was the only one this high in all of Sakita.

  The heels of my socks were wet, but it was well worth it to get this view—his view—of the world. Still, it wasn’t enough. I longed to throw my vision higher, to hang it from the construction cranes that no longer spun above our skyline, to take pleasure in seeing how miniscule this world could truly become. I ran my hand along the railing, sending clumps of snow off the edge, and watched them fall down, down, down.

  The weeks following the bento incident had passed by in a haze. I spent most of my time wandering around Sakita without any real aim, occasionally passing by the mall to see if Soki was there. Of course, he never was. A few times, I thought I saw his travelling slow-cooker on the road, but more often than not it turned out to be a mirage. I longed to speak to him again, but he was nowhere to be found.

  And yet, when Soki finally did appear in my class, as though a reward from a divine power, I found myself unable to say a word. He had stood there, vulnerable, at the front of the room, but rather than reintroduce myself, I left him alone.

  I continued to eat my korokke, lost in thought above Sakita’s industrial skyline. My biggest fear was that Soki would turn out to be the same as everyone else, that he would be assimilated by the class too easily. Perhaps keeping a distance from him was for the best. And perhaps I could have remained detached, had he not come through that door.

  Behind me, I heard the fire escape open. I imagined a janitor had seen me on the roof and was coming up to scold me. Instead, I saw Soki, shielding his eyes from the glare of the snow, as if summoned by my daydreaming.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, visibly surprised. “What are you doing up here?”

  I stared at him, frozen mid-bite, unsure of what to say. “What are you doing up here?” I managed at last. I had assumed he would be eating with some of his new friends.

  He leapt from one foot to the next, following the rough path I had carved out, before reaching me. A strong wind passed between us, knocking me slightly off-kilter, almost backwards. Soki, on the other hand, didn’t waver at all.

  “Saw chunks of snow falling through the window. Figured someone was on the roof. Got worried and came up. Didn’t realize it was you.”

  He paused, as if working up the courage to ask something.

  “You’re not going to jump, right?” he blurted out. “Because that happened at my old school. Made a huge mess.”

  Soki was now looking over the railing himself. Scattered throughout the streets, the glow of traffic lights and neon signs found their way through the snow, pulsing with a strange warmth.

  “You’re Anna, right?” he said. “We talked at the mall.”

  “Yeah. You just moved here from Hokkaido.”

  “Huh. You remembered.” He dusted some snow from his pants. “I used to live in Sapporo. Then Nagano, Gifu, even Kyoto. Kyoto was the most fun. But now we’re here.”

  I remembered vaguely that my mother had gotten married in Kyoto. “What’s Kyoto like?”

  “It was okay. Better than here. Lots more shrines. More kami, too
.”

  “More kami? What do you mean?”

  “In Kyoto, they’re everywhere. In the bamboo. In frogs. Moss. Even the houses are alive because they’re made of wood. But here,” he gestured towards Sakita with his chin, “everything’s made of concrete. Kind of depressing.”

  I heard a shout, followed by some laughter, from the classroom below us. Someone was playing a game.

  “What are you eating?” he asked.

  It took me a second to realize he was motioning to the unwrapped korokke in my hand. “Just lunch. I got it from the conbini down the street.”

  “You’re lucky. My mom never lets me eat packaged food. Says it’s ‘junky.’ I think what she means is ‘tasty.’ Look,” he reached into his backpack, pulling out a homemade bento. “She makes this kind of stuff every day.”

  He opened up the black lacquer box—an expensive-looking thing—and showed me what was inside: a small salad, a piece of sweet pumpkin, a palmful of rice, slices of sausage. I’m not sure why this detail stuck out for me, but Soki’s mom had taken the time to cut up the mini-sausages so they would be easier to chew.

  “Nothing deep-fried or anything. Isn’t it the worst?”

  The best I could do was nod.

  “Do you want to trade? I’ll give you the sausages for your korokke.”

  I popped one into my mouth as Soki chewed on the korokke. The sausages were quite tough, and in all honesty a little tasteless. At some point, snow had begun falling again, dusting the top of Soki’s head white.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” he said, swallowing the rest of the korokke down. “Remember when we met back at the mall? You said that my charms are just cloth and paper, but they’re still worth believing in. Did you really mean it?”

  I thought back to The Prince, to the hollow in my chest, to the things I couldn’t let go. The voice coming from the classroom was clearer to me now, and I recognized it as belonging to one of Mina’s lackeys.

  “Of course,” I said. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

  “But are you religious?” he continued. “Like, do you go to shrines?”

  I glanced at him, surprised by his persistence. It was unusual for someone our age to be so invested in Shintoism.

  “Other than holidays, not really. Just like everyone else,” I said. “You must be a shrine kid, right?”

  He gave a resigned smile. “Used to be. Then my dad stopped believing. He says Shinto might have had a purpose before, but it’s meaningless now. The gods are leaving Japan.”

  “What about Kyoto?” I asked. “You said there’s kami there.”

  “Probably. But the farther south we go, the less of them I see. In Sakita, it feels like there’s none at all. No offence.”

  “None taken. The entire city’s basically concrete anyway.”

  He nodded. “But I wonder if that makes a difference. Concrete still comes from the earth. It’s just that humans have touched it. Do man-made things have kami, too?”

  “Like a satellite?” I asked, a little too quickly.

  He turned to me, surprised by my rapid response. “Yeah, like a satellite.”

  I pondered this question as Soki continued to pick away at his lunch. Beyond Ms. Tanaka’s lectures and our New Year’s ceremonies, I couldn’t say I knew much about Shintoism. Is a kami the same as a soul? Who gets to decide what has a kami and what doesn’t?

  “I’m not sure,” I said, rather weakly.

  “You don’t know?”

  I caught the disappointment in his voice. Why was he asking me to begin with?

  “It’d be nice,” I offered.

  “Guess so. Sorry. Thought you might have an idea.”

  His breath billowed up into the sky, mixing with mine before fading into the air. Do satellites breathe in space? Or is it too cold up there? Maybe it just crystallizes.

  The bell began to ring, signalling the end of our break. Soki got up to leave and glanced back at me curiously when I didn’t do the same.

  “Well, nice to meet you again.” He bowed his head slightly.

  I waved in return, and Soki went on his way, leaving just as suddenly as he’d appeared. A part of me wasn’t sure he had been standing next to me at all. The footprints he left behind only made me feel more alone, somehow.

  In the distance, a train rattled through the outer edge of Sakita, skimming our city as it would the surface of a pond. The snow that was falling down on us had kami, that was for sure, but what about the streets that it covered? Did Sakita even have kami? I didn’t know why this mattered to Soki, but I wanted so desperately to understand. Why had he sought me out specifically? What did he think I could help him with?

  I knew then what I would have to do. That weekend, I would leave this city behind. For once, someone needed me. If I couldn’t answer Soki’s question, there was someone else who could.

  I would go to meet my friend, The General.

  SATELLITE

  FOR THE FIRST TIME, Anna wasn’t eating alone.

  The day that Soki and Anna spoke, it was 6.23 degrees Celsius outside in Sakita. On Earth, 341,523 people were born, while 149,780 died. The average person’s heart would have beaten 115,000 times, while Anna’s beat slightly more. And when she eventually did leave the roof for her next class, there was a 3.2-millimetre lift in the corners of her mouth that was impossible to suppress.

  Soki was good for her. And I should have been happy. But I could feel this irrational jealousy start bubbling to the surface, a sickeningly human feeling. A fear of being abandoned by my creator.

  Was I wrong, then, for wanting to keep her to myself?

  ANNA

  THAT SATURDAY, I BOARDED the train to Kumamoto later than I had hoped, having spent the morning preparing food for Grandpa to eat while I was gone. The station was mercifully close, the layers of ill-fitting jackets I wore keeping me warm as I left the house. After purchasing my ticket, I wandered back and forth along the platform, entertaining myself with fantasies of being a fugitive on the run.

  A half hour later, my train pulled up to the station, rattling like a collapsed lung. A handful of tired salarymen and a single office lady emerged from the car, feeding their tickets through the gate with a worn-down expertise. Perhaps they also worked in another city, commuting home to Sakita on days off. I was relieved to find that I recognized none of them.

  The train was incredibly old-fashioned, still using paper tickets, and somewhat reminiscent of a Cold War–era bomb shelter. This was the very line slated to be replaced by the bullet train that promised to revitalize the city. It felt as though these rails bore the disappointment of all of Sakita, which struck me as particularly unfair.

  I left the city just as the snow began to worsen, the train beating a taiko drum rhythm into my head. The landscape slid by like panels in a storybook. Tiled roofs and skyscrapers. Telephone poles and wild boars.

  I rummaged through my knapsack for my Discman and chose a soundtrack to keep me company. The entire time, I could feel the LEO’s gaze from up above, offering me support. I pressed my face against the window, feeling the cool glass against my skin. If I closed my eyes and imagined just right, it almost felt like I was floating.

  An hour later, I arrived in Kumamoto, the familiar unease of entering a big city growing in my gut. In Sakita I resented that there was no one new to meet; in Kumamoto I was unnerved by the presence of a crowd. I craved and rejected human attention, needed something both near and far at the same time.

  I hopped into the first taxi I found and gave directions to The General’s home. The sun danced its way across glass-pane towers, wet snow piling along the roads like refuse from a changing world. Through my headphones, Shiina Ringo was singing about being the queen of Kabuki-cho, her vocals interrupted by every speedbump we hit along the way. At one point we passed a boy, slightly older than me, showing off a new b
ike to his younger brother. For whatever reason, I felt a pang of jealousy.

  * * *

  *    *    *

  At New Leaf Seniors’ Residence, nothing had changed since my last visit. I was entering a dead zone by coming here, time stagnant underneath its stone-tiled roof. The lobby, as well as the rest of the units, were built in a faux-traditional style, with sliding doors made of glass rather than paper, hardwood floors alongside tatami mats. I signed in to the guest book, the receptionist giving me a knowing half-smile.

  “He should be having tea around now, so it’s good timing on your part,” she said. “He’s lucky to have you, you know. If it weren’t for you…”

  He wouldn’t have any visitors at all.

  Those unsaid words hung in the air, prompting me to hurry on my way.

  From a cave in the Philippines to a mid-range retirement home—a modest upgrade to say the least. A makeshift community had emerged here, populated by the childless and the unmarried, those with no one to live with in old age. Aside from my visits, The General’s only company was in the form of caretakers and other retirees.

  I entered The General’s room, second to last from the end of the hall, the door unlocked as it always was. Walking in, I made a point of stepping harder than necessary, so that he could feel the vibrations of my feet through the ground. I liked to imagine that one day, his senses would sharpen to the point where he could feel the air displaced as I moved towards him.

  The General was sitting on the floor, in profile to me, staring very intently at nothing at all. He hadn’t realized I was there yet, allowing me to take a moment to silently bask in whatever made The General The General, trying to glean wisdom from his aura.

  From where I stood, the light reflected softly off The General’s bald head, giving him a nearly holy glow. He could no longer sit in lotus position, nor with his legs folded underneath him, and so he sat cross-legged instead. Nonetheless, he meditated with complete devotion, something which, during those tender years, moved me very deeply. Draped loosely over his shoulders was a rough cotton yukata, reminding me of a yamabushi mountain hermit. I could easily picture him donning a hexagonal straw hat and leading devotees on ancient pilgrimages, white and saffron robes billowing in the wind.