Light From Uncommon Stars

by Ryka Aoki

Let it be music. If she could make it music, Katrina knew there would a place where she could breathe. A place where she could rest.

Something was missing. As she watched each of them shine and fall, sparkle and burn, Shizuka became more and more obsessed with a music playing just beyond hearing—maddeningly familiar, yet always beyond her grasp.

“What if I told you that Hell would receive something special to remember me by?” “Would you really expect me to believe that you are risking your existence out of an affection for Hell? “Of course not. But the seventh will be worth the wait—for all of us.”

At last, Shizuka peed. She hummed Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” She thanked the ancestors; she thanked the gods. If it hadn’t been spoken for, she’d have given her soul to Jesus right there.

Donut Lady smiled. And Shizuka felt herself fall into a field of stars.

But as Shizuka drove away, she could not forget Donut Lady’s starry, faraway eyes.

Lan had heard many voices since arriving on Earth, but that sunglass lady worked this very ordinary oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere into something beautiful. “Mother?” Or maybe the way she held herself. Her posture was effortless, elegant, as if denying the planet’s gravitational field.

The space around her was filled with the soft, glorious hum of the warp field. It was the second-most beautiful sound she had heard today.

And then, in the space where words might have been, Shizuka heard the unexpected. Most people would have heard a tone. A trained musician might hear A440. And a very special musician would hear the violin waking up, saying good morning, once again coming to life.

The music was every hope Katrina had abandoned, every dream she had released. It was hamburgers on the grill, fruit punch in the cooler, a bag of Costco beef jerky for everyone. It was dancing without knowing the steps and not caring. It was her mom holding her, her dad calling her his little girl. And then, it stopped.

The woman looked closely at Katrina, and Katrina panicked. She was bracing to hear, “Wait, you’re a boy.” Instead, the woman’s gaze never changed. “And I could teach you.”

Still, as Lan listened to Shizuka’s voice, it was as if her words had a faint and peculiar pull, giving Lan the tiniest desire to enter Shizuka’s reality as well.

But tonight, Miss Satomi’s violin sounded different. Astrid closed her eyes. Her playing was every bit as rich and nuanced as all the years had made her. Still, something about Miss Satomi’s music seemed almost as if it were waking, returning.

“When you think of love, is it somewhere the colors are brighter and everything seems to glow?” Astrid said casually. “With no pain, like your heart is skipping and doing cartwheels?” Katrina looked down. “No, ma’am.” As if someone like her could have a life like that. “Good.” “M-Miss Astrid?” “Good. Because love is so much more than that, isn’t it?” Katrina nodded. That much at least she knew.

“Goodbye, Helvar. The world is changing, you know. A pity you aren’t ready to live in it.” She took the violin and walked out of the store. “Come, Katrina, let’s have brunch.” Most likely by coincidence, it was a half hour later when Helvar Grunfeld’s heart decided to stop.

“Suddenly, I could hear my violin singing to me, singing to my soul, promising if I believed in her, I could fly away and she would fly away with me, too.”

When someone needs to fly, sometimes it’s best to pull the ground away.

Each was someone whom Katrina had never heard of. Each was someone whom Katrina would never, ever forget.

But Katrina had always been free. She had been free of acceptance, free of love, free of trust. So now she clung to anyone who would tell her which way to go, which way was safe, to anyone who would give her a star.

There was still work to do; there would be good days ahead, and terrible ones. But now there was understanding. And with understanding, all things were possible.

Some punk was revving his engine. His car was a quasi-streamlined thing with a lot of stickers on it; another primitive shithead who thought going 0 to 0.00000089469 times the speed of light in 6.6 seconds was something to brag about.

Being doubted hurts. But what hurts even worse is not being heard.

How did I find out? I didn’t have to—because I never expected to survive.

“Everything the audience hears, what we strive to create … what we live to convey … it comes from there. In your hollows. In your nothingness. “There is where your music gains its life.”

Tomorrow is tomorrow. Over there is over there. And here and now is not a bad place and time to be, especially when so much of the unknown is beautiful.

“Ever wonder why,” Lan finally said, “if there is intelligent life out there, that the universe isn’t teeming with activity?” “Maybe the universe is filled with introverts?”

“Good night, Katrina. Dream of everything beautiful.” “Good night.”

what if Katrina could make her listen? What if she could play everything she had become, despite every mistake she had made, every bridge she had burned?

“So, love?” Tremon said suddenly. Shizuka looked up, startled. “I can think of only one emotion that makes someone so uncharacteristically unreasonable.”

The final choice will be Katrina’s. And you will not be able to interfere.” “Even if I love her?” “No. Because you love her.”

“日本語？なんてこった！”

Translation: japanese oh my god!

“And so many live the same way. One becomes a good plumber, or mother, or Christian, or Dodger fan, or teenager. One lives section by section, one stage to the next. “But sometimes, sections change keys, tempos. They change moods. Timing … Some melodies don’t resolve in an expected way. Some don’t resolve at all. So people begin to fear playing beyond the sections they have played out of habit, out of fear.” “And eventually one runs out of sections,” said Lan.

“Imagine what would happen if they could perceive their lives not as separate sections to be entered and left behind, but with a continuous forward, backward and all places in between?

This is the song of a queer kid who escapes from a window to a sidewalk in the middle of the night. This is the song of a trans girl just wanting a fucking bathroom in the middle of the day.

What is magic, anyway? If magic is more than illusions on a stage, if magic can actually change the world, then what is reality but a song that one imagines and sets free?

Shizuka, Katrina is listening. You gave her a place to stay, mended her violin, and bought her Cinnabon. You taught her to find friendly faces in the darkness, music in her empty spaces. You gave her a pathway she could follow; you helped her understand applause. And she sang and spoke until she could stand alone, in front of everyone, and declare herself beautiful.

You can always, always rewrite your song.

I know that you can no longer play your music on your world. So, Miss Shizuka Satomi, would you be okay with playing it to the stars, instead?”