Found Footage

Chapter 5

Chapter 5“The first confirmed sighting from the new observatory in Hawaii.”

He read the words aloud, frowning as he held the crumpled newspaper up before him, momentarily glancing down at the black and white photograph that accompanied the text, peering at the distant shape, an ashen smudge in a field of black.

“Is that so?” he murmured to himself, scanning the text again to find where he had left off.

On the bridge of his nose, his glasses slid down, and with annoyance, he raised his hand, pushing them back up. On the table before him, a cigarette smoldered in the ashtray, a glass circle residing next to his half-drunk cup of coffee, as, behind him, he could hear his wife busying herself in the kitchen with something or other.

“The sighting was first determined thanks to the unique disturbances of radio signals in both the United States and the Soviet Union, a result of strange environmental effects on the surface.”

Not long, he thought. Not long before he’d have to start setting up for the evening. In a moment, he promised himself, just a little more time at the table, a little more time with his coffee and cigarette.

“What this means for our solar system is yet unknown, but for now—”

“Are you running late?”

He turned, lowering the paper, and found his wife standing on the threshold that divided the kitchen from the living room, a wry, bemused expression on her face. Ishikawa Genjo found himself studying her face, investigating the amusement present in her features, the apron about her waist, the curls of her dark hair. It was clear, he thought, from where their youngest daughter had inherited her sardonic manner.

“I was just reading,” he said, as if explaining the situation justified his unwillingness to move.

His wife, Marie, nodded with amusement.

“I know,” she said, “I can hear you muttering from the kitchen.”

Genjo half turned, reaching for his cigarette and placing it between his lips.

“Sorry about that.”

He did nothing, and Marie gestured with her hand impatiently.

“Come on.”

Faint annoyance stirred within him.

“What?”

“It’s time to get ready. We open in an hour.”

As if to punctuate this, he heard the door, their youngest daughter announcing her return from the hallway, slipping off her shoes. Forlornly, he cast his gaze back to the newspaper.

“There’ll be time enough for that later,” his wife chided.

With a sigh, he folded the paper, and placed it on the table besides the undrunk coffee and the glass ashtray, and he rose to his feet.

The door opened, and Miki presented herself, still in her school uniform, her expression as baffling to him as her mother’s. She looked from her mother to her father.

“What?” she asked.

Genjo sighed, grinding out his cigarette in the ashtray and smiling.

“It’s nothing,” he said, and then added. “Time to go to work, I suppose.”

On the table, the newspaper remained unread, a black and white photograph of a lonely ashen smudge beyond distant Pluto enshrined on either side by words of its discovery.