Harper's: "Once an Empire" by Rivka Galchen

I remember the excerpt from Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances that was in The New Yorker awhile ago. It was quirky and interesting, and so that's what I was expecting from this new story in Harper's (which you can only read the first paragraph online unless you're a subscriber). I guess that's what I got. But it's a tough story to crack. What's it all about? I struggled to come up with any kind of an interpretation (some of my readers, one in particular, may say that there's no need to inter...