His waistcoat buckles and splits. Its perfectly tailored seams rip wide open.
“Wings,” the Astronomer says. “Wings, wings, wings.”
“Yes,” the Insect says. “Wings.” And it is true enough.
The stars say nothing in return.
Opposite is cured by opposite.
Deep calleth unto deep; or—Sea calls to sea.
The times are changed, and we are changed in them.
Be amiable, then you’ll be loved.
Knowledge is power.
Seek the truth.
The stars incline us, but do not bind us.
In dreams there is truth.
Speaking heart to heart.
Cheers.
Eat my shorts.
Launch forward into the deep.
We are dust and shadow.
Teach me whatever is true.
He who wants everything loses everything.
1. Now.
The Vox sputters to life, on schedule, at four a.m.
Even the chickens are asleep.
“CITIZENS!” it shouts. “ROUSE YOURSELVES! THROW OFF YOUR BEDCLOTHES! PREPARE FOR A MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER HIMSELF. TODAY, BELOVED CITIZENS, IS A GLORIOUS ONE! RUB YOUR EYES! CLEAR YOUR THROATS! THE ANTHEM IS AT HAND!”
Every citizen has a Vox. It’s the law. Everyone knows the schedule by heart. Still, the jangly arrival of the announcer’s voice is a jolt in the nationwide quiet. In households across the country, traitorous pillows cover otherwise patriotic ears. And in the darkness, thousands of children feel their inconstant eyes well up, mourning the loss of yet another night’s rest.
The junk man’s daughter stares up at the scattered stars, the harsh glint of planets cutting into the black. The hay under her back has clumped and matted over the course of the night, and everything is damp. Her father—well, her foster-father—is lying on top of the heap of gathered treasures, head below hips, arms splayed over cracked urns and dead radios, skinny legs hanging over the side in unlikely angles. He snores prodigiously, and even from where she lies a few yards off she can smell the decaying drunkenness; her eyes burn from the alcoholic cloud emanating from his mouth and off-gassing from his skin.
He calls it whiskey, but it is not whiskey. It is a homemade alcohol that he brews in a boot and distills in small batches in a miniature coil that he designed himself.
His daughter is amazed that he hasn’t gone blind. Or blown his hands off. She knows that it has something to do with the unintentional protection that she affords him simply by existing.
What will happen to him if she is discovered? How will he survive without her? Who will take care of him if she is gone?
(Not if, her heart knows. When.)
The junk man groans in his cart.
“Did you say something, my Sparrow?” he slurs.
“No, Papa,” she says. “Go back to sleep.” By the time she finishes the word papa, he is already snoring. Still she says it. “Papa.” Her voice is like the clasp of fingers curling around a living heart and holding on for dear life. He has been her papa since she opened her eyes for the second time, fifteen years ago. But will he even remember her when she is gone? She doesn’t even know.
The anthem blares—a long, plodding, minor-key affair, like a funeral dirge. It is sung this time by two old men, their voices tired and sagging.
Former generals, the girl knows without trying. And today is their last day.
Being a general is a risky business, after all. Little failures are more likely to catch the Minister’s eye, and no one wants to catch the Minister’s eye. Not if he wants to keep his own head. The two men heave a great sigh the moment the song ends. One begins to sob.
“DO YOU SEE, BELOVED CITIZENS, HOW PATRIOTISM STIRS THE HEARTS OF EVEN THE MOST HARDENED OF MEN? LET US ALL TAKE A MOMENT TO WIPE OUR OWN FLOWING TEARS! LET US ALL PAUSE TO BLOW OUR LEAKING NOSES!”
The Vox devolves into a chorus of fake sobbing. Someone makes a honking sound like a dying goose, or a broken horn.
The junk man’s daughter sighs. She pulls herself to her feet, wraps what used to be a boiled-wool blanket, but now is little more than a scrap, around her shoulders and tiptoes, barefoot, across the frost-kissed lawn to the window of the farmhouse. She shivers, but not from the cold. The inhabitants do not know that she spent the night on their lawn with her beyond-drunk father. Even if they looked out the window, they would see him and they would see the cart, but they likely wouldn’t see her.
Hardly anyone can see the junk man’s daughter. Those who can do so, she can count on one hand. Others can see her from time to time, but without any regularity. (And most don’t like her much, when they do. She is the junk man’s daughter after all. Tainted, clearly, by his drinking and shiftlessness.) It is lonely, this invisibility. Of course it is lonely. But safe. Safe.
(But for how long, she finds herself wondering more and more lately. And for what purpose? Even now, having lived this way for fifteen years, she still has no idea.)
She leans her chin on the sill and rests her forehead against the glass. She can feel the vibrations of the Vox’s voice buzzing in her skull.
“BELOVED CITIZENS! HAS THERE EVER BEEN SO GREAT A NATION?” The Vox chuckles at the very thought of it. “NOW, GATHER CLOSE. WE HAVE ITEMS OF BUSINESS TO DISCUSS BEFORE OUR DEAR MINISTER COMES TO BRING YOU HIS MESSAGE OF HOPE AND PEACE!”
The farmhouse inhabitants have ignored the Vox and have kept their lights off and bedroom doors closed. Likely, they have fashioned earplugs for this very purpose. (These cannot be bought, of course. Earplugs are illegal. Ignoring the Vox is also illegal. This family, like many this far away from the capital, sometimes lives by its own rules. For now, anyway. The junk man’s daughter finds this charming.) The Vox drones on for a
