Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“I believe nearly five hundred thousand hours,” said the Senior Official, doing the mental math for Bai Bing. He accepted the mouse and zoomed out, revealing the young mother on the maternity bed, and the rest of the hospital room. There were a bedside table and lamp in the plain style of that era, and a window with a wooden frame. What caught his attention was a spot of red-orange light on the wall. “I was born in the evening, about the same time as now. Perhaps this is the last ray of the setting sun.”

The Senior Official shifted the time slider, and the image again began to jump rapidly. Time flew past. When he stopped, the screen showed a small circular table lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. At the table, his plainly dressed, bespectacled mother was tutoring four children. An even younger child of three or four, clearly the Senior Official himself, was clumsily feeding himself from a small wooden bowl. “My mother was an elementary school teacher. She liked to bring the students having trouble with schoolwork back home for tutoring. That way, she could pick me up from nursery school on time.” The Senior Official watched for a while. His child self accidentally spilled the bowl of porridge all over himself. His mother hurriedly got up, reaching for a towel. Only then did the Senior Official move the time slider.

Time skipped forward a few years. The screen suddenly lit up in a blaze of red, apparently the mouth of a blast furnace. Several workers in dirty asbestos work suits were moving, their silhouettes flickering in and out of the furnace flames. The Senior Official pointed to one of the figures. “That’s my father, a furnace worker.”

“You can change the angle to the front,” said Bai Bing. He tried to take the mouse from the Senior Official, who refused him politely.

“Oh, no. This year, the factory worked everyone overtime to increase production. The workers had to be brought meals by family members, and I went. This was the first time I saw my father at work, from this exact angle. His silhouette against the furnace fire impressed itself into my mind very deeply.”

Once more, years passed in the wake of the time slider, stopping on a clear, sunny day. The bright red flag of the Young Pioneers of China waved against the azure sky. A boy in a white shirt and blue trousers gazed up at it as other hands fastened a red scarf around his neck. The boy’s right hand flew above his head in a salute, passionately announcing to the world that he would always be prepared to struggle for the cause of Communism. His eyes were as clear as the cloudless blue sky.

“I joined the Young Pioneers in second grade of elementary school.”

Time jumped forward, and a different flag appeared: that of the Communist Youth League, against the backdrop of a memorial to the fallen. A small group of older children were swearing their oaths to the flag. He stood in the back row, his eyes as bright as before, but tinged with new fervor and longing.

“I joined the Youth League first year of secondary school.”

The slider moved. The third red flag of his life appeared, the flag of the Communist Party this time, in what appeared to be an enormous lecture hall. The Senior Official zoomed in on one of the six teenagers taking their oaths, letting his face fill the screen.

“I joined the Party sophomore year of college.” The Senior Official pointed at the screen. “Look at my eyes. What do you see in them?”

In that pair of young eyes could still be seen the spark of childhood, the fervor and longing of youth, but there was a new and yet immature wisdom, too.

“I feel you were… sincere,” Bai Bing said, looking at those eyes.

“You’d be right. Until then, I still meant every word of the oath.” The Senior Official wiped at his eye, the motion minute enough that Bai Bing didn’t notice it.

The slider moved forward another few years. This time it sped too far, but after a few small adjustments, a tree-shaded path appeared on the screen. He stood there, looking at a young woman turning to leave. She turned her head to look at him one last time, her eyes bright with tears. She gave a powerful impression, solemn but resolute. Then she left, disappearing into the distance between the two rows of tall poplars. Tactfully, Bai Bing got up and prepared to leave some space, but the Senior Official stopped him.

“Don’t worry, this is the last time I saw her.” He put down the mouse, his gaze leaving the screen. “Very well, thank you. You may turn off the computer.”

“Don’t you want to keep watching?”

“That’s all I have worth reminiscing.”

“We can find where she is right now, no problem!”

“That won’t be necessary. It’s getting late; you should leave. Thank you, truly.”

Once Bai Bing left, the Senior Official telephoned the security station, requesting that the building guard come up to his office for a moment. Soon after, the armed police guard entered and saluted.

“You’re… Yang, yes?”

“You have an excellent memory, sir.”

“I didn’t call you up here for anything important. I just wanted to tell you that today is my birthday.”

Taken by surprise, the guard was momentarily lost for words.

The Senior Official smiled indulgently. “Send my regards to the ranks. You may go.” The guard saluted, but just as he turned to leave, the Senior Official seemed to think of something. “Oh, leave the gun behind.”

The guard hesitated, but pulled out his handgun. He walked over and carefully set it on one end of the broad office desk, before saluting again and leaving.

The Senior Official picked up the gun, detached the magazine, and took out the bullets, one by one, until there was only the last. Then he pushed the magazine back in. The next person to handle this gun could be his secretary, or the janitor who came in at night. An empty gun was always safer.

He put down the gun, then stood the removed bullets on the table in a circle, like the candles on a birthday cake. After that he strode to the window, looking across the city to the sun on the verge of setting. Behind the outer city’s industrial air pollution, it appeared as a deep red disk. He thought it looked like a mirror.

The last thing he did was to take the small “Serve the People” pin from his lapel and set it on the flag stand on the desk, beneath the miniature flags of China and the CCP.

Then he sat at his desk, calmly awaiting the last ray of the setting sun.

THE FUTURE

That night, Song Cheng entered the main computer room of the Center for Meteorological Modeling. He found Bai Bing alone, looking quietly at the screen of the booting superstring computer.

Song Cheng came over and patted his shoulder. “Hey, Bai, I’ve already notified your manager. A special car will arrive shortly to take you to Beijing. You’ll give the superstring computer to a central official. Some other experts in the field might listen to your report too. With such an extraordinary technology, it won’t be easy to get people to understand and believe it all. You’ll have to be patient when you explain and give the demonstrations… Bai Bing, what’s wrong?”

Bai Bing remained quiet, not turning from his seat. In the mirrored universe on the screen, the Earth floated suspended in space. The ice caps had altered in shape, and the ocean was a grayer shade of blue, but the changes weren’t obvious. Song Cheng didn’t notice them.

“He was right,” Bai Bing said.

“What?”

“The Senior Official was right.” Bai Bing turned slowly toward Song Cheng. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Did you spend an entire day and night coming up with that conclusion?”

“No, I got the future-time recursion to work.”