Wasteland of Flint

The Cornuelle

Mitsuharu sat in his office, overhead lights dimmed down to rows of faint orange glowworms. A single hooded lamp cast a circle of sharp white light on the papers, storage crystals and pens covering the top of his desk. A comp panel on the bulkhead was filled with a navigational plot — a bright dot for the ship and five hundred thousand kilometers of asteroid, meteor debris, interstellar ice and dust in all directions. The image had been building for hours, data flowing in slowly from the ship's skin fabric and the newly tuned g-array.

In the dim light, the captain's face was mostly in shadow, head against the back of his chair, eyes closed, thin-fingered hands clasped on his breast. The rest of the room, the stacks of books, the ancient pottery bowls and rice-paper paintings were entirely dark.

A sound recording was playing. Children were singing, their careless voices echoing from the walls of an unseen building.

Kaeru no uta ga

Kikoete kuro yo

Guwa…guwa…guwa…guwa

In the background, the sound of trucks passing on a road mixed with the high, thin drone of a supersonic transport overhead. Dogs barked in the distance and a woman called out. The children splashed in water and sang another round, voices sweet in unconscious harmony.

Ge ge ge ge ge ge ge ge,

Guwa guwa guwa

In his memories, Mitsu knew the building had whitewashed wooden walls and a roof of green iron. Paper lanterns ornamented with pen drawings of birds and flowers hung from the eaves. Inside the house, the floors were glossy dark redwood, with tatami mats and rice-paper screens between the rooms. An old man would be sitting in his study, short white hair lying flat against a sun-bronzed scalp. He would be reading, a book turned into the cool light slanting down between the closely spaced buildings. The study smelled of mold and paper and dust and ink.

Guwa…guwa…guwa…guwa, sang the children in the yard. They were playing with frogs.

On the comp display, another level of detail slowly appeared, etching images of tumbling, shattered mountains of ice and stone and iron ever clearer.

In his memories, Mitsu knew the street in front of the little house was black macadam, potholed and crumbling at the edges. He heard a delivery truck putter past and saw an enameled red panel with the word ASAHI painted in black and yellow. Thick green grass sprouted from every crevice along the sidewalks. The walls of the houses were tinged with moss and tiny blue flowers.

On this day, as the children splashed in the mud, making frog pens of twigs and glass jars from the kitchen, the sun was shining through heavy gray clouds, making the air sparkle and shimmer. To the east, a line of mountains rose, white shoulders gleaming with ice and snow.

The recording ended. After a short pause, the scratchy, keening sound of a bow scraping across taunt gut string emerged from the quiet silence. The shamisen wailed up into the sound of falling leaves. A hand drum began to tap in counterpoint. Mitsu settled deeper into his chair, letting the warm fabric carry the weight of his head. The strings and the drum lifted into summer wind and a reedy bamboo flute joined them, carrying falling rain.

A man's voice — deep, hoarse, rich as the rivers and streams beneath the Golden Mountain, melancholy with longing for a homeland lost beyond the sea — began to sing. One of the musicians coughed, almost covering the sound with the hem of his kimono.

Kimi ga yo wa,

Chiyo ni yachiyo ni,

Sazare ishi no

Mitsu could see his father sitting on the edge of the porch surrounding the garden, face shining in the light of the lanterns and lamps. The shamisen across his leg was a dark walnut color, faced with amber-tinted pine. In memory, the hands were nimble on the strings, while the porch roof and the house walls gave his graceful voice a full, mellow echo.

Iwao to nari te,

Koke no musu made

On the comp display, the ship continued to move in endless night, skin taut against the fabric of space, straining to hear the slow lilting song of gravity humming in the void.