Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

He rose from his stool to clear the plates, and suddenly it was obvious to Fan that despite the nap he was still very tired, his eyes sagged and bloodshot. She offered to clean up and he let her. While she washed the dishes and wok, and wiped down the counters, he sat in the living area, taking out a small metal box from the undershelf of the coffee table. The box had a lid with a mini-window and clear tubing attached, and he plugged it into an outlet. From a special tin he plucked a tiny, sticky brown cube from rows of cubes and placed it inside the box, turning a dial. When a ping sounded, he took the tube in his mouth and inhaled. He did this a few more times and Fan could smell it, a syrupy botanical funk, the scent very similar to what one of her oldest aunties would smoke nightly out behind their row house. She was always the happiest auntie, never irritable or gossipy and forever fixed with a wan smile.

When Fan was done, Vik asked her if she wanted to watch a vid with him. Apparently, he’d just found and ordered an original file of one of his favorite movies, an old-time full-length anime about a girl counter-cyberterrorism agent. Fan had never heard of it but was immediately engrossed in the story and the way it was animated in an antique handmade style, much like, she thought, the Girls’ wall was (at least until the final gargantuan image), though this heroine was endowed with the body of an impossibly slender if still voluptuous woman and looked nothing like anyone Six would have ever conceived. It was a lengthy movie and in the middle Vik paused it and zapped a bag of popcorn, which they steadily drew down as it was lodged between them, he nodding and snorting and sighing in boyish delight at the familiar action and images, Fan following along as well as she could, perhaps intrigued most by the idea of the cyborg heroine, whose powers were superior and who showed great resilience of spirit but was also made vulnerable by her consciousness of the hybrid nature of her being. Fan wasn’t sure if she had been affected by the residual vapors from Vik’s contraption, but the muted colors of the anime seemed somehow especially rich and haunting, and the sequences of violence and protogenesis so strangely beautiful, that by the end, after the heroine is physically destroyed but rises again, whole in form but entirely changed, Fan felt a sudden hollowing in her chest, a flash cavern of longing that she had not yet known.

And what was that longing? It was certainly not for Vik, although she must have already been comfortable with him, sitting as closely as they were in the murky light of the vid. It wasn’t, surprisingly, about the tiny thing growing within her, which by now was perhaps just endowed with a real human shape, if not so in her consciousness. And it wasn’t even about Reg, as her feeling for him was all too constant, self-generating like some massive falls, which would not diminish even over the millennia.

Vik’s hand grazed hers and she pulled away. But in fact, he just had fallen asleep, his mouth barely ajar, a dusting of popcorn salt clinging to the corner of his lips. She powered off the screen and in the pitch black she made her way to her pullout bed in the study, turning on a light to find a blanket. When she came back out to cover him, Vik had slid down on his side, his bony knees already raised up toward his chest; this was probably what always happened on the first night off call. In the study Fan lay unsleeping, though with the door to the living room kept open. She listened to his breathing, light and fine at first and then deepening to snoring, which did not bother her at all, in the way it did not bother her in the thinly partitioned row house back in B-Mor, her uncles and aunties and cousins pitching their nightly calls in an unmelodious orchestration that heralded her blood.

But in fact, we suspect she did not miss them, or us. We were still in view but as heatless as any patch of distant stars. For the enigma of her longing, it might be said, was of no longing, not one born of selfishness or egoism, some belief that she was scaled (and now colored) larger or brighter than the rest, but that after two and a half months away, having trailed down those unmarked and twisted roads, and been subjected to the warped designs (and hopes) of sundry citizenries, when it must have seemed each time that all was lost again, the tethers were now released, the moorings finally dismantled, and she was floated out, alone. Which was strangely fine.

It was odd for Fan to shop again on the main thoroughfare of the village. For one, it was much more pleasant now. Of course, she was with Vik instead of Miss Cathy, and rather than being the focus of the shopkeepers’ overbearing attentions, she was simply tagging along, observing Vik navigate the various stores on his mental list and peruse their offerings with a seriousness and sense of purpose that made their errand feel vitally important. It did not matter that he was just buying a housewarming present, which in B-Mor would have been something like a boxed set of five unblemished persimmons, or a tin of sencha , somewhat dear items that were of unquestionable value and practicality and, with any luck, might be shared with the giver (it never being poor form in B-Mor to swing soon back around).

Vik, on the other hand, was searching for the singular gift, something they might use often or not at all but that would complement the distinctive needs or lifestyle of the receiver, which included the very fact that he or she might possess such a thing. So they went in and out of food shops and gadget shops and home furnishings shops, too. Then shops for drinks, and bathwares, and kitchen supplies and equipment, these last of which there seemed to be the most of, seemingly every fourth store lined with unending inventories of luxury glassware, pans, ladles, and spatulas, such that Fan had to think that every dish that Charters made (or was made for them) had to be served or prepared with a dedicated series of implements, vessels. And by extension, that every movement or act of Charter life, however trivial, required specialty objects and mechanisms for the best chance at an ideal outcome.

Take, for example, items Vik briefly considered, a device for spearing and pulling out accidentally pushed-in wine corks, or a pillow that inflated/deflated and heated/cooled via customizable programs. For nearly two hours they went up and down Seneca Avenue, not pausing to eat or drink, until he finally found the thing he thought they would like, in a former pet store, of all places, which now sold all kinds of stuffed animals, both plush and realistic, as well as accessories for them, such as clothing and toys and “food.” He picked it out while Fan was in the toilet, and when she returned, they had already boxed and gift-wrapped the present, which was very large and heavy enough that the proprietor said he would deliver it directly to the housewarming party tomorrow afternoon. Fan asked Vik what it was and he was going to tell her but then thought it should be a surprise for everyone.

It was a rare off-weekend for Vik and besides the morning’s gift shopping and the next day’s party he was completely free, which Fan assumed would mean he’d be off someplace or out to restaurant meals. Although he messaged his girlfriend dozens of times, and browsed various pictures of her, some, she noticed, quite racy, and did actually speak to her once (Nothing really, how about you?), he didn’t make any plans with her or seem bothered or disappointed by that. He was content to remain in and around the condo. He did bring Fan along to the extensive fitness center in the condo development that was skylit by huge panes of glass, like the nicest production facility one could imagine. The gleaming, spotless hardwood floors were set with all sorts of first-class cardio and weight machines, and in the back were lots of VACs, virtual activity chambers for exotic sports such as skeet shooting and snowmobiling, though most all of the residents Fan saw there just jogged on the treadmills while they watched their programs, or else swam slo-mo laps in the twenty-five-meter pool. They looked fit enough and not one of them could be termed fat, but it seemed to Fan they were maintaining themselves in a stressful way, such as not quite eating enough, their dogged faces a bit too drawn, even slightly desiccated.