Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“If this were a dream, everything would be fine. Look!”

The pilot pointed below. Where the two cliffs had crashed into each other, the sea hadn’t yet settled. Two waves as long as those cliffs rose, as if they were the reincarnation of those two seawater cliffs on the sea’s surface. They parted, heading in opposite directions. From high above, the waves weren’t that impressive, but careful measurements showed they were over two hundred meters tall. Viewed from up close, they’d seem like two moving mountain ranges.

“Tidal waves?” Yan Dong asked.

“Yes. Could be the largest ever. The coast is in for a disaster.”

Yan Dong looked up. She could no longer see the frozen block in the blue sky. According to radar, it had become an ice satellite of Earth.

For the rest of the day, the low-temperature artist removed, in the same way, hundreds of blocks of ice of the same size from the Pacific Ocean. It sent them into orbit around the Earth.

By nightfall, a cluster of twinkling points could be seen flying across the sky every couple of hours. You could distinguish them from the usual stars because, on careful inspection, someone could make out the shape of each point. They were each a small cuboid. They all, in their own orientations, spun on their own axes. As a result, they reflected the sunlight and twinkled at different rates.

People thought for a long time, but were never quite able to adequately describe these small objects in space. Finally, a reporter came up with an analogy that got some traction.

“They’re like a handful of crystalline dominoes scattered by a space giant.”

A Dialogue Between Two Artists

“We ought to have a chat,” Yan Dong said.

“I asked you to come just to do that, but only about art,” the low-temperature artist said.

Yan Dong stood on a giant block of ice suspended five thousand meters in the air. The low-temperature artist had invited her here. The helicopter that had brought her had landed and now waited to the side. Its rotors were still spinning, ready to take off at any moment.

Ice fields stretched to the horizon on all sides. The ice surface reflected the dazzling sunlight. The layer of blue ice below her seemed bottomless. At this altitude, the sky was clear and boundless. The wind blew stiffly.

This was one of the five thousand giant blocks of ice the low-temperature artist had taken from the oceans. Over the past five days, it had taken, on average, one thousand blocks a day from the oceans and sent them into orbit. All across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, giant blocks of ice were being frozen and then carried into the air to become one of an increasing number of glittering “space dominoes.” Tidal waves assaulted every major city along the world’s coasts. Over time, though, these disasters became less frequent. The reason was simple: The sea level had dropped.

Earth’s oceans had become blocks of ice revolving around it.

Yan Dong stamped her feet on the hard ice surface. “Such a large block of ice, how did you freeze it in an instant? How did you do it in one piece without it cracking? What force are you using to send it into orbit? All of this is beyond our understanding and imagination.”

The low-temperature artist said, “This is nothing. In the course of creation, we’ve often destroyed stars! Didn’t we agree to discuss only art? I, creating art in this way, you, using small knives and shovels to carve ice sculptures, from the view from the perspective of art, aren’t all that different.”

“When those ice blocks orbiting in space are exposed to intense sunlight, why don’t they melt?”

“I covered every ice block with a layer of extremely thin, transparent, light-filtering membrane. It only allows cold light, whose frequencies don’t generate heat, to get into the block of ice. The frequencies that do generate heat are all reflected. As a result, the block of ice doesn’t melt. This is the last time I’ll answer this sort of question. I didn’t stop work to discuss these trivial things. From now on, we’ll discuss only art, or else you might as well leave. We’ll no longer be colleagues and friends.”

“In that case, how much ice do you ultimately plan to take from the oceans? This is surely relevant to the creation of art!”

“Of course, I’ll only take as much as there is. I’ve talked to you before about my design. I’d like to realize it perfectly. Initially, I planned to take ice from Jupiter’s satellites if it had turned out that Earth’s oceans aren’t enough, but it seems there’s enough to make do.”

The wind mussed Yan Dong’s hair. She smoothed it back into place. The cold at this altitude made her shiver. “Is art important to you?”

“It’s everything.”

“But… there are other things in life. For example, we still need to work to survive. I’m an engineer at the Changchun Institute of Optics. I can only make art in my spare time.”

The low-temperature artist’s voice rumbled from the depths of the ice. The vibrating ice surface tickled Yan Dong’s feet. “Survival. Ha! It’s just the diaper of a civilization’s infancy that needs to be changed. Later, that’s as easy as breathing. You’ll forget there ever was a time when it took effort to survive.”

“What about societal and political matters?”

“The existence of individuals is also a troublesome part of infant civilizations. Later, individuals melt into the whole. There’s no society or politics as such.”

“What about science? There must be science, right? Doesn’t a civilization need to understand the universe?”

“That is also a course of study infant civilizations take. Once exploration has carried out to the proper extent, everything down to the slightest will be revealed. You will discover that the universe is so simple, even science is unnecessary.”

“So that just leaves art?”

“Yes. Art is the only reason for a civilization to exist.”

“But we have other reasons. We want to survive. The several billion people on this planet below us and even more of other species want to survive. You want to dry our oceans, to make this living planet a doomed desert, to make us all die of thirst.”

A wave of laughter propagated from the depths of the ice. Again, it tickled Yan Dong’s feet.

“Colleague, look, once the violent surge of creative inspiration had passed, I talked to you about art. But, every time, you gossip with me about trivialities. It disappoints me greatly. You ought to be ashamed. Go. I’m going to work.”

Yan Dong finally lost her patience. “Fuck your ancestors!” she shouted, then continued to swear in a Northeastern dialect of Chinese.

“Are those obscenities?” the low-temperature artist asked placidly. “Our species is one where the same body matures as it evolves. No ancestors. As for treating your colleague like this…” It laughed. “I understand. You’re jealous of me. You don’t have my ability. You can only make art at the level of bacteria.”

“But, you just said that our art requires different tools but there’s no essential difference.”

“I’ve just now changed my perspective. At first, I thought I’d run into a real artist, but, as it turns out, you’re a mediocre, pitiful creature who chatters on about the oceans drying, ecological collapse, and other inconsequential things that have nothing to do with art. Too trivial, too trivial, I tell you. Artists cannot be like this.”

“Fuck your ancestors anyway.”

“Yes, well. I’m working. Go.”

For a moment, Yan Dong felt heavy. She fell ass-first onto the slick ice as a gust of wind swept down from above. The ice block was rising again. She scrambled into the helicopter, which, with difficulty, took off from the nearest edge of the block of ice, nearly crashing in the tornado produced as the block of ice rose.