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HeavensGate-Chapter02

Website: http://www.yellowtailshark.com/Literature/HeavensGate

Chapter 2

It has been three years since I last heard from Tâm. I received a letter in the mail from him. Attached to the letter was a photo of him standing in front a large expanse of blue, which I supposed was the ocean. I've never actually seen the ocean, so the photo seemed a bit too surreal to comprehend. There was also a young woman standing next to him, their arms wrapped around each other.

Thien, my stepfather-to-be, and I have gotten along fairly well. He helps out around the farm, and I show him how to take care of the crops. Likewise he continues to amuse me with more philosophy, poetry, humor and romanticism. Mother, on the other hand, has been trying to re-introduce me to the other young women in the village so as to expedite my fathering of her grandchildren.

There is one woman who I've consorted with fairly frequently, though Mother doesn't approve of her. Linh is a house servant of a neighbor, brought in within the past year. I met her while bringing some medicinal herbs to the household. Despite my knowledge of just about every girl my age within the village, she was unfamiliar to me. It was hard to take her out formally by asking permission from the neighbor, so I had to sneak her out in the middle of the night. And there wasn't too many secluded spots to maintain secrecy, so we often drove out to a lot behind an empty warehouse that was once used to store excess food. The gray metal and concrete cloaked in shadow is hardly a welcoming environment, but it does afford us the sparse privacy in the small village.

"I'm sorry," Linh apologized to me one evening, "You know, you look a lot like my last boyfriend." I felt a bit confused at that statement, not knowing to feel joyful or worry.

"What happened to him?"

"They got to me. Sent me into rehabilitation."

"They?"

"You know, the State Police."

"I know Chú Đào at the police center. He did this?"

"No, he just works at this village. I'm talking about the ones patrolling Saomai's asteroid fields."

"Saomai's asteroid field?" I had never heard of an asteroid field.

"Yeah." Linh didn't continue for a few minutes. She wasn't prepared to confess everything to me. "Ever traveled?"

"Actually no. I've never stepped foot outside of this village."

"Are you serious? Not even this village?" She gave me a look of surprise. I rolled my eyes. "Not like him."

I looked at her without saying a word, but she understood and immediately apologized. "Sorry. Again. I shouldn't be comparing you to him."

"What's he do for a living anyway?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"You're not like him. Only if you're like him can I tell you."

"That's not fair. Are you still comparing me?"

"No, that's not what I meant," she tried to explain, "I mean, it's not something I should tell anyone. Doing that would put him in more danger."

I couldn't press on any more about him. "So what is Saomai like?"

"Not a place I'd like to live! You never know if those asteroids are going to collide with each other! Actually, can you keep a secret?"

"Not a single soul."

"I used to live within an asteroid in there. It's a hidden facility."

"I'm sorry, but, can you explain to me what an asteroid is?"

She looked at me in bewilderment. "You really haven't been off this planet have you?"

"Off this planet?! What are you talking about?"

"You do know there are cities on other planets right? I mean, other star systems."

That evening she taught me about the existence of populations on other planets and that there were ships that traversed the great distances of space, forming countries that spanned several hundred stars. I went home that night unable to sleep. She must've been crazy. There was no way that could happen. If people could reach the stars, why weren't we taught this in school? In the morning I asked Mother and Thien about the possibility of flying to other stars. Silence was the usual response from Mother, but Thiên made a comment.

"I've been wondering that myself. I had a dream about it." This wasn't entirely helpful, and only served to confirm the idea that Linh was a lunatic.

—

I haven't seen Linh for a few weeks. Her belief in her so-called asteroid home, among other things, was a strong enough reason to avoid her. And yet she was by far the most interesting person I have come across, more so than Thiên and his romantic philosophical notions. Because for a few minutes, I actually believed her! Or at least I wanted to. What she said felt like a stepping stone into uncovering some sort of greater truth, especially about my dreams of my grandfather.

I woke up to the tapping at my window. It was probably only a few hours past midnight, the moon only a sliver among the glassy skies. A shadow at the window revealed the presence of a human being. Not taking chances, I picked up a marble kylin sculpture that Thiên gave me as a gift, placed it in my right hand held over and behind my head ready to drop. I crawled along the wall and opened the window while out of the view of the mysterious figure outside.

"Nhân," the voice was familiar, "it's me, Linh."

"What are you doing here? At this hour too." I quickly collapsed my arm and placed the sculpture onto an adjacent table. It was dim, and my eyes took some time to adjust, where upon her face my glance fell on her eyes. Only her left eye was open. The right was swathed in a circular patch of black. She had been hit in the eye.

"Linh! What happened to your eye?"

"Nhân, will you run away with me?"