Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“That seems like a star bright enough to see. How far is it?”

“2.65 parsecs away, just 8.6 light-years.”

“The light from the sun twinkling has already traveled for ten years. It’s already reached there. Perhaps Sirius has already twinkled back.”

“But the light from it twinkling won’t arrive for another seven years.” She seemed to wake all of a sudden from a dream, then laughed. “Oh, dear, what am I thinking? It’s too ridiculous!”

“So you’re saying, as an astronomer, the idea is ridiculous?”

She studied him earnestly. “What else can it be? As a brain surgeon, how do you feel when someone discusses with you where thought comes from, the brain or the heart?”

He had nothing to say. She glanced at her watch, so he started to leave. She didn’t urge him to stay, but she accompanied him quite a distance along the road that led down the mountain. He stopped himself from asking for her number because he knew, in her eyes, he was just some stranger who bumped into her again by chance ten years later.

After they said goodbye, she walked up toward the observatory. Her white lab coat swayed in the mountain breeze. Unexpectedly, it stirred up in him how it had felt when they’d said goodbye ten years ago. The sunlight seemed to change into moonlight. That feather disappeared in the distance… like a straw of rice, sinking into the water, that someone desperately tries to grab. He decided he wanted to maintain that cobweb-like connection between them. Almost instinctively, he shouted at her back:

“If, seven years from now, you see Sirius actually twinkles like that…”

She stopped walking and turned toward him. With a smile, she answered, “Then we’ll meet here!”

SECOND TIME

With marriage, he entered a completely different life, but what changed his life thoroughly was a child. After the child was born, the train of life suddenly changed from the local to the express. It rushed past stop after stop in its never-ending journey onward. He grew numb from the journey. His eyes shut, he no longer paid attention to the unchanging scenery. Weary, he went to sleep. However, as with so many others sleeping on the train, a tiny clock deep in his heart still ticked. He woke the minute he reached his destination.

One night, his wife and child slept soundly but he couldn’t sleep. On some mysterious impulse, he threw on his clothes, then went to the balcony. Overhead, the fog of city lights dimmed the many stars in the sky. He was searching for something, but what? It was a good while before his heart answered him: He was looking for Sirius. He couldn’t help but shiver at that.

Seven years had passed. The time left before the appointment he’d made with her: two days.

SIRIUS

The first snow of the year had fallen the day before, and the roads were slippery. The taxi couldn’t make it up the last stretch to the mountain’s peak. He had to go, once again, on foot, clambering to the peak of Mount Siyun.

On the road, more than once, he wondered whether he was thinking straight. The probability she’d keep the appointment was zero. The reason was simple: Sirius couldn’t twinkle like the sun had seventeen years earlier. In the past seven years, he had skimmed a lot of astronomy and astrophysics. That he’d said something so ridiculous seven years ago filled him with shame. He was grateful that she hadn’t laughed at him there and then. Thinking about it now, he realized she had merely been polite when she seemed to take it seriously. In the intervening seven years, he’d pondered the promise she’d made as they left each other many, many times. The more he did, the more it seemed to take on a mocking tone….

Astronomical observations had shifted to telescopes in Earth orbit. Mount Siyun Observatory had shut down four years ago. The buildings there became vacation villas. No one was around in the off-season. What was he going to do there? He stopped. The seven years that’d passed had taken their toll. He couldn’t climb up the mountain as easily anymore. He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately abandoned the idea of turning back. He continued upward.

He’d waited so long, why not finally chase a dream just this once?

When he saw the white figure, he thought it was a hallucination. The figure wearing the white windbreaker in front of the former observatory blended into the backdrop of the snow-packed mountain. It was difficult to make out at first, but when she saw him, she ran to him. She looked like a feather flying over the snowfield. He could only stand dumbstruck, and wait for her to reach him. She gasped for air, unable to speak. Except that her long hair was now short, she hadn’t changed much. Seven years wasn’t long. Compared to the lifetimes of stars, it didn’t even count as an instant, and she studied stars.

She looked him in the eyes. “Doctor, at first, I didn’t have much hope of seeing you. I came only to carry out a promise or perhaps to fulfill a wish.”

“Me too.”

“I almost let the observation date slip by, but I never truly forgot it, just stowed it in the deepest recesses of my memory. A few nights ago, I suddenly thought of it….”

“Me too.”

Neither of them spoke. They just listened to the gusts of wind that blew through the trees reverberate among the mountains.

“Did Sirius actually twinkle like that?” he asked finally, his voice trembling a little.

“The waveform of its twinkling overlaps precisely the sun’s from seventeen years ago and Alpha Centauri A’s from seven years ago. It also arrived exactly on time. The space telescope Confucius 3 observed it. There’s no way it can be wrong.”

They fell again into another long stretch of silence. The rumble of wind through the trees rose and fell. The sound spiraled among the mountains, filling the space between earth and sky. It seemed as though some sort of force throughout the universe thrummed like a deep and mystical chorus…. He couldn’t help but shiver. She, evidently feeling the same way, broke the silence, as though to cast off her fears.

“But this situation, this strange phenomenon, goes beyond our current theories. It requires many more observations and much more evidence in order for the scientific community to deal with it.”

“I know. The next possible observable star is…”

“It would have been Procyon, in Canis Minor, but five years ago, it rapidly grew too dark to be worth measuring. Maybe it drifted into a nearby cloud of interstellar dust. So, the next measurable star is Altair, in the constellation Aquila.”

“How far is it?”

“5.1 parsecs, 16.6 light-years. The sun’s twinkling from seventeen years ago has just reached it.”

“So we have to wait another seventeen years?”

“People’s lives are bitter and short.”

Her last sentence touched something deep in his heart. His eyes, blown dry by the winter wind, suddenly teared. “Indeed. People’s lives are bitter and short.”

“But at least we’ll still be around to keep this sort of appointment again.”

He stared at her dumbly. Did she really want to part ways again for seventeen years?!

“Excuse me. This is all a bit overwhelming,” he said. “I need some time to think.”

The wind had blown her hair onto her forehead. She brushed it away. She saw into his heart, then laughed sympathetically. “Of course. I’ll give you my number and email address. If you’re willing, we’ll keep in touch.”

He let out a long breath, as if a riverboat on the misty ocean finally saw the lighthouse on the shore. His heart filled with a happiness he was too embarrassed to admit to.

“But… Why don’t I escort you down the mountain.”

Laughing, she shook her head and pointed to the domed vacation villa behind her. “I’m going to stay here awhile. Don’t worry. There’s electricity and good company. They live here, forest rangers… I really need some peace and quiet, a long time of peace and quiet.”