Is That a Star or a Satellite?

By Justina Lim:

A man tries to sleep at night. He’s had too much to drink. An empty bottle of Jack by the

couch. A tray of ice weeping over the edge of the table. A whiskey glass strewn on its side,

housing a burnt-out cigarette. The air is stale and acrid from the alcohol. The man walks himself to bed, staggering as Christ did on his final station.

“Idiots,” he grumbles. His bed is a simple wooden structure against an open window—no

AC, no black-out curtains, neither frills nor fancy. But tonight, even with his eyes closed, the

glare of a bright, gleaming spot in the night sky makes the back of his eyelids glower with

agitation. He thinks it might be a satellite.

“Bloody ISS,” he spits, his eyelids half-drawn. But he knew that if it were a satellite, the

ISS had no real fault in this sleepless game. Bloody government . . . whatever! Just let me sleep! But he didn’t want to be let to sleep, like a pawn without will. He wants to sleep—he drifts to the netherworld somehow.

In the morning, the man rises and barely shines. Was that a star? Or a satellite? If it were

a star . . . at whose expense? On his way to work, he thinks of his wife, as he does some mornings.

They were in love. Then he was, and she wasn’t. Before, he thought they could be as

formidable as Sirius. An anthropologist and an astrophysicist. God knows the man tried to keep up, made himself nothing more than a dwarf in doing so. And when he could no longer, she went on anyway. “You’re comfortable,” she said. “But I just can’t see a life tethered to you.”

He barely sees her anymore, yet he can barely stop thinking about her. She’s bright,

unceasing, and stellar—he would only have been in her way. So he trudges along his own orbit. Inch by inch, in endless revolutions. He feels a wave of fatigue wash over him, if only he’d had some sleep. Was that a star? Or a satellite? Maybe it was the Vanguard 1, shining out of sheer momentum. Coffee at 7, consultations at 9, lectures from 2 to 5.

The man tries to sleep at night.

The people on the screen have no opinion of their own, he thinks. They must be satellites.

Communicating and observing—like he has been doing for the entirety of his career. The best anthropologists leave no footprint, he teaches his students. Unlike the stars, whose personalities are so brilliant they can’t help but impose.

The light in the sky, burning into the corner of his eye, is so demanding that he tries to

meditate it away. I haven’t been remarkable, he thinks. But I haven’t been ignorable.

In the morning, he rises and barely shines. Was that a star? Or a satellite? If it were a

satellite . . . at whose expense? On his way to work, he thinks of dying, as he does some mornings.

It is still early for the students, and the campus is quiet. He drags an unwilling self across

the campus green, and his loafers get caught in a sticky, unrelenting pink mass. Fucking gum. Sometimes you reach for the stars and end up with debris. The night before, the school had held a launch party for the Stanford QuakeSat, a nanosatellite set to detect major earthquakes in the area based on yada, yada. He has to kick away empty cans of soda and beer on his way to the office. “Load of bullshit,” he mutters. “Space is not your infinite fucking junkyard.”

Unlike his wife, the man has no legacy to leave behind. He has observed, analysed, and

interpreted every culture and species known to man. He has extended the footprint of one people to another, and none of his own. He has published countless papers on anthropology, for naught, since they’ve mostly gone unread. In the end, he goes home to his infinite junkyard and watches the same people on the screen. Submissions for the Anthropological Quarterly littered in stacks around the apartment; his most recent study now a placemat for his microwave dinner. A pile of dirty dishes in the sink that he might wash later. Might not. Last night’s whiskey glass can still be used for another drink. He fishes out an old cigarette from it, tosses it nowhere, and freshens his drink.

He moves out of sheer momentum. An empty bottle of Jack by the couch. A tray of ice

weeping over the edge of the table.

A light forces its way through the windows into the corners of his eye. Fucktards. Is that

a star or a satellite? Because if it were a star, at whose expense? And if it were a satellite . . .

---

Justina Lim

Justina Lim is a Singaporean writer whose work explores the extremity of human nature: guilt, desperation, desolation. Her work has been included in anthologies by Asian and independent publishers. By day, she crafts words that sell in advertising and marketing; by night, she writes to understand the things that can't be sold. Justina is also a volunteer English tutor for lesser-privileged communities in Singapore.