Cuckoo

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But, unbeknownst to the public, Regarding Space (who dealt with everything extraterrestrial) had been tracking what seemed to be a scream coming from Dead End for nearly thirty-nine years. A group of galaxies considered to be the most barren part of the universe, scientists speculated the area to be the largest expanse of uninhabited space to exist. That was until thirty-nine years prior when at 3:33 am United Universal Time, a small lab named Dome621 discovered a small frequency coming from the center of Dead End. The sound lasted for a single minute, but after further study was discovered to repeat every day at the exact same time. For thirty-nine years, Dome621 listened and recorded the frequency at 3:33, never making any progress as to its propagator.

Dome621 was tiny compared to its sibling labs. Understaffed and underpaid, the workings of the building were considered pointless and irrelevant by many who actually knew its function. Funded by one of the major subdivisions of RS called Regarding Extra Terrestrial Communications (or RETC for short), the workings of the scientists at Dome621 included scanning different parts of the sky for a multitude of wavelengths. Using various computers and programs, the wavelengths would then be compiled into their audible counterparts. Sounds were sorted through and those considered relevant would be further studied. It was extremely rare to find sounds in space special enough to deem researchable and most ended up in the RETC’s Records of Lesser Importance.

Simply put, the scientists of Dome621 were collectors of the sounds of the universe.

***

Jamie Crux was a born and raised citizen of New Texas. He considered himself a member of the Expansionist party; he believed that the exploration of Space would bring the end of suffering to human kind. Maybe, just maybe, the cure to all was waiting at the edge of the universe. All they had to do was beat infinity first.

When Jamie was eleven, his father bought him a telescope. After a week of having seemingly disappeared, Father made his way home one night, the strong scent of whiskey on his breath. He sat on the front porch and stared at the sky. Jamie and his mother watched him from the front window and for what seemed like hours, he remained there, the only movement being the inhales and exhales of his labored breathing. When he finally broke from his trance, he turned his head to look at Jamie and Mother. It was uncanny the way he seemed to know that they were there watching. The corners of his lips curled to form a little smile, a rather sad smile Jamie thought, and he lifted his hand and beckoned Jamie out. Mother let go of Jamie’s hand, and her and Father traded looks while Jamie put on his shoes. Mother seemed tired, and Father stared at her as if she was the only thing in the entire world he was sure of.

Jamie opened the door and sat by his father on the concrete porch steps.

“Hey kiddo,” he whispered, placing a hand on Jamie’s head, ruffling his hair. “I got something for you.” On the porch step lower than them sat a box which Father pulled up and set on his lap. He took a small knife from his pocket and slit open the tape holding the cardboard together.

A vintage brass telescope lay inside. “Do you know what this is Jamie?” Father asked, offering the box to his son. By the largest barrel, Jamie pulled the telescope out of the box and set it on his lap.

“This is heavier than I thought it would be,” was Jamie’s reply.

“Yes, it is heavy, but do you know what it is?” The two sat in silence for a few moments. “It’s a telescope Jamie. You can use it to look at the stars.” With his father’s guidance and support, Jamie lifted the eyepiece to his right eye until everything fell into focus.

“It’s not amazing by any means. It in no way compares to the fancy ones they have in labs. But if you get it focused on the moon you can see the detail a lot better. Here, look in the box again and pull out the stand. Then we can set it up and we don’t have to hold it on our own.”

Father helped Jamie carry the telescope to the center of the yard, prop up the stand, and secure the telescope on top. It was a warm night and a slight breeze blew across the lawn in the front yard. Moonlight fell on the swaying grass like sunlight over river water. Nearly full, the moon illuminated the small cul de sac where they lived. Almost all of the neighbors were asleep; it was unnaturally quiet. The street was lightless aside from what flickered in the sky.

“Come here, look through the lens,” Father beckoned. “I’m going to turn this knob down here very slowly, so we can do it right, and you tell me when the moon looks clear. You should be able to see it in more detail than you ever have before. I’m going to start focusing it now, ok?”

Father spun the knob until the moon fell perfectly in place. What Jamie saw through the telescope looked like an image he’d seen in a book.

“It looks so close,” Jamie whispered to his father. “I feel like I should be able to reach out and touch it almost.”

Although the moon was gray, there were so many shades of it. Large dark splotches, small light ones, lines covering the whole being like a thin curtain of spider webs. A moon spider, now that was an entertaining thought. For a second Jamie’s mind wandered to a world in which a spider with ruby eyes drew pictures across the celestial body, art for its gods and muses. And, every night when the spider tired, he would crawl to his cave of moonstone on the farther side, the one hidden from Earth.

Father spoke, and while snapped from reverie, Jamie’s attention remained fixed on the moon. “I’m gonna go up there one day.” He sighed.

“If I were one of the richer ones we’d be up there with the others right now. We could go on walks down paths of moon dust and eat cake made with milk harvested from moon cows. I wonder if everything tastes better up there. I also wonder how they walk around day to day, there being less gravity you know? Probably weighted boots or something. Ten years from this day when I make more money than I do now we’ll get a rocket of our own and fly up to join them.”

He paused, tilting his head to look up at the sky. “I mean I suppose that Mars and Neptune are also viable options but I rather like the moon. It’s familiar. When I was your age and space travel was still newer, I had dreams of going up there.”

Everything was quiet once again.

The front door squeaked open, and Mother called from inside.

“Rod, will you come in for a minute please?”

“Yeah I’ll come,” Father glanced once more at the sky and began walking towards the house.

“You can stay out here and keep looking,” he told Jamie. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Mother meant to close the door behind her and Father, but it remained open a crack. Not enough to be especially noticeable but enough to let in bugs and let out parts of conversations that were not meant for young Jamie.

“I don’t know how to be a good father Anna, I don’t know how to be a good husband. I don’t know how to exist and it’s hard. It’s so hard.”

“You don’t get to just walk out on us. I know life is hard, I get it, but I’m not going to let you drink yourself to nothing. I don’t know, maybe it’s selfish but you’re here with us. You have a kid who needs you. If you can’t try for me, can’t you try for him?”

“I am trying. I’m trying my hardest but I’m tired. I want to sleep.”

“Come here,” Mother said in a hushed tone. If Jamie could have seen past the door and walls to the family room, he would have been able to see Mother sit Father on the couch. She pulled his body down on hers, seating his head in her lap. Softly she played with his hair and Father buried his head between her legs, sobbing.

“You don’t have to speak, but listen to me,” Mother said calmly, trying her best to hold back tears.

“We love you. We really love you. But I hate this - I hate seeing you unhappy. You’re unraveling and I need you to let me help you. You can’t go on like this, hell, I can’t go on like this. If we don’t do something now things are only gonna get so much worse.”

“Let me find someone who you can talk to. Someone with a license, someone who can really listen and tell you what’s good for you. I can start looking in the morning.”

They sat for minutes in silence. Mother continued to stroke Father’s hair and she wiped the tears from his cheeks. Things had been bad for a while but never like this.

Mother choked. “Why can’t you just take your pills?” Staring at the man in her lap, she too began to cry.

Father had abruptly stopped bawling, and on the verge of unconsciousness lay peacefully fatigued, staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t sense the universe. When I take them, the stars just look like stars. I don’t feel them anymore.”

Jamie thought he knew what his father meant. In that moment, he too felt the stars. He felt the moon pull softly on each of the countless atoms in his body. He was the sky and the sky was him. For the first time in his short life on Earth, he felt something deeper than existence. He felt purpose. He was carved out of stars.

We are the same Jamie, the sky told him.

While his parents continued to talk, he tumbled to the grass. His consciousness fell into each blade he lay on and his mind faded to dreams of life on the moon.

Inside, following the night’s conclusion of their conversation, Father had also fallen asleep. Tempted by the comfort of the couch and warmth of Mother’s legs, he had passed out and was snoring softly. Mother was indeed tired but before anything else, she was a mother. She had a child to take care of. Leaving Father’s resting body reclined on a pillow, she dragged herself outside and picked up Jamie’s sleeping body in her arms.

“Look at you,” she half whispered to herself, half to Jamie who smiled unaware at the bliss and whims of his dreams. “You’re too small to have to deal with all this.”

Mother carried him up each step to his bed. His head drooped over her arm and she had never seen a tiny face look so content. He was a small child and his body was not heavy, but her being was tired and craved sleep. It took a substantial amount of effort to place him on his mattress and tuck him in, so much so that she did not make it out of his room that night but instead fell asleep on the hardwood ground at the foot of his bed.

Not much changed the following day or the days to follow. Father wasn’t around any more than he had been before and a few months later he just wasn’t there. Jamie didn’t care to inquire from Mother as to where he went. Instead he spent his time with the sky. His telescope was his favorite friend. The telescope introduced him to infinity.

Jamie’s love of space only grew the older he got. He majored in The Basics of the Universe and graduated high school with his Prerequisite in Astronomy. Unaware of how he made the decision, he chose to pour his studies into Astronautical Engineering. After finishing university, he worked for a few years for People of Earth (another presect of RS responsible for the care and wellbeing of Earth dwelling humans) designing and constructing personal rockets and spaceships for buyers.

For four years Jamie worked for People of Earth. He watched as an increasing number of families saved up their earnings to purchase rockets and ships of their own. While they escaped to different planets and galaxies, Jamie remained. I’ll get there one day, Jamie told himself.

When he turned twenty-five, an old professor phoned him. It was a day like any other. Jamie had just gotten off work and he was making pasta for dinner. The loud ringing startled him and he jumped before walking a few feet to the counter where he picked up and answered the phone.

“Jamie, my dear, how are you?” an older, raspier voice rang out from across the line.

“Who is this?” Jamie asked, hesitant to hold a call with a stranger who somehow knew him yet failed to mention his name.

“Sometimes I am rather stupid, I admit, and I forget to introduce my connection to that whom I ring. It’s Caldwell, Jamie- Celestial Anatomy? You were a student in my class nearly six years ago. God how time flies.”

“Professor! This is quite the surprise! What compelled you to call me?”

“First of all, no need for professors or any title of that likeness. Just call me Caldwell, would you? You’re an adult with an adult profession and I think we’re past university formalities. Second, well, I’m not sure what I’d call it. A favor? A job? I have a proposition for you.”

“Go on sir, you have my attention.”

“No need to call me sir either. No formalities. Now, have you heard that they’re building another Dome?”

“I had no idea. Are you sure? If another Dome was in construction I rather feel like the whole city would be talking about it.”

“That’s the beauty of it Jamie. No one knows about it. It’s being built within a few miles of Dome94 which means it’s to sit in the middle of rocky desert land. No people around, no worries. In fact the only way to reach it is by bus! The RETC’s setting up a whole transportation system just to get there. A private station with its own schedule and everything.”

“Aren’t The Domes mainly operated under private research groups and universities? What purpose does the RETC have for a private dome? You’d think they’d already have established the facilities needed to contact any individual being within a couple hundred lightyears at any time they please. I assume you saw the completion of the refurbished headquarters on Neptune?”

“Well, this is a little different. A side project of theirs if you will.”

“What does this project entail?”

“I’m glad that you’ve finally asked the important question. It’s perfectly simple really. We’re to point fancy machinery at the sky and listen for sounds. I’m not quite sure what the RETC is looking to find, I can only speculate. I suspect they’re hoping to catch whispers of war from other galaxies and eavesdrop in on gossip. Being relatively new to space travel we have a lot to catch up on you know. I’ve been asked to head the project myself. I’m calling to inquire as to how attached you are to your current job.”

Jamie began working at Dome261 a few weeks after its completion. Nearly six years later, he was on duty when The Scream was discovered. When the RETC would not acknowledge the findings relevant to their mission, Jamie pushed them to reconsider.

“What if someone’s out there, what if we were wrong about Dead End being dead?” Jamie conversed with Caldwell one night. “We’ll never know, and all because the RETC is more concerned about their personal purpose than what could be a massive discovery! It’s madness.”

“I don’t know what to tell you son. Not much you could do unless you were chairman of the RETC.”

So that’s what Jamie became- not Chairman of the RETC, but Director of Operations for all of RS. It only took him 39 years, countless kiss-ups and dealings with people who should never have been put in the positions of power they held. Nevertheless, he made it.

What he found was not people to take The Scream seriously, but rather an endless amount of responsibility. The Director of Operations did not have as much free will as colleagues made it out to be.

“Am I crazy Sammy? Is it insane that I’ve invested so much of my life into something so many people don’t consider important?” Jamie lamented to his assistant.

“You don’t choose what’s important to you sir, and I happen to think that it’s rather fascinating,” was their reply.

Jamie continued. “I should have gone out there and searched for it while I had the chance. But I’m a coward, and I spent my whole life waiting for someone else to do it. I’m afraid I’ve messed this one up.”

“Where you find purpose, someone else will. Just because you haven’t met someone like you doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” Sammy imparted. Sammy always knew what to say.

So, in a last ditch attempt to find people that cared enough, Jamie recorded a video that he promptly transmitted to the most popular news station of every surrounding planet. He knew things about the RETC that the public didn’t, and at risk of extremely damaging exposure, the RETC had no power to stop him.

“Dear friends,” he began. “For thirty-nine years now a scream has been sounding from Dead End. The RETC is choosing now to share this information with you in hopes that you will be able to solve a mystery that they never could. I am offering a prize, a favor by the RS to whoever can find it. For those interested, please contact the number on screen.”

With the video aired, all Jamie had to do was wait. He didn’t know what people would find, if anything at all. Some part of him hoped that as unrealistic and crazy at it seemed, somewhere in the vast depths of uninhabited space was his father.

***

Alexandrea Domini Ameth worked at a waste plant in Montkey Bay. Her hours were noon-six every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, with the occasional holiday weekend. She got the job because her uncle knew someone who was more than happy to overlook her painfully lacking resume due to his even more lacking list of employees. She neither loved nor hated the job.That’s how she felt about a lot of things.

Uncle Mav became the sole caretaker of her and her older sister Samya when their parents died. They lived in the trailer they were raised in, willed to the two girls by their mother and father. Samya grew up wanting nothing more than to leave. Domini couldn’t care less where she stayed. Samya wanted a lot of things the Ameths didn’t have. Samya said she was just born more ambitious; Domini thought she was unrealistic.

Sometimes she believed herself to be a disappointment. Domini would not be able to hold down work if it were given to her on a slab of emerald as commandment from a god. She was incredibly good at everything she did, however, Domini was not looking for security but was on an eternal and rather inconvenient search for The Job. She believed in a perfect occupation and that all she had to do was seek it out. It was, in fact, her only goal in life.

Uncle Mav used to tell her that her future couldn’t start until she dug her toes down and chose something to commit to, but here she was, commitmentless and living in the future Mav said she wouldn’t have. It was never a proper morning until he felt the need to display his disgust at what he believed to be Domini’s irresponsible nature, saying things like, “For Christ’s sake, just pick a goddamn job Dom,” and “You’re going to be living off the government your whole life if you can’t figure things out.” It never particularly bothered her; she always payed her share of bills and kept herself fed.

Mav’s well intended ramblings had become ritualistic. She missed hearing his complainings in the morning, and she realized that as sad as it was, that’s how he showed her he cared about her.

But Uncle Mav had gone off to Montkey Prison on charges of laundering money by means of his lamp business. The court stated that they found rolls of illegal cash stuffed in hollow lamp rods sold straight from Uncle Mav’s shop.

Samya had left years ago. She was not headed anywhere in particular but set out to follow her newest dreams. She believed that life had a higher place for her.

That left Domini alone.

Domini didn’t believe in much, and fate existed the same way the universe did to her. If she couldn’t see it, it was not of particular importance. But on an early May morning, fate met her as a blue loading vehicle. It ran her and the magnetic bike she was riding off its line, sending her crashing into a streetlight and subsequently a code that had been strung up which fell off in collision. When scanned, it played a video announcing the race to The Scream of Dead End.

She sold her trailer, quit her job, counted savings, and within that week was leaving Earth on a rocket she bought and christened Bruno.