Earth with Heaven
The storm was roaring,
lights flashing.
The temple of Nippur,
the storm was roaring,
Lights flashing.
Heaven with earth
was talking;
earth with heaven was talking.
<rest broken>
— The Barton Cylinder. Surface A. Column 1. Lines 7-14.
The king stood at the rim of his tower and looked up, back the way he had come.
The night sky glowed yellow-black. The dust of the tower’s descent had dissipated, but clouds reflected the lights of the city below, obscuring the stars.
Only a few bight points twinkled around the face of a single celestial body. An earth-world. Giant, pitted, impossibly close, it gleamed like old teeth.
Ki An-da, King of the Tower, Emperor of All Worlds, the Pinnacle of Achievement, turned his face away from that hoary light. Twelve twelves of Beads clattered in their gold-wire cages, and swinging on their strings from neck to navel.
The high astrologer flinched back, lest he touch a Bead and die.
“Where are we?” Ki An-da’s voice rumbled like the motors at the base of his tower. Dead now, their Beads passed to their apprentices, now training for war.
The astrologer licked his lips. “Well…”
“Surely you know.”
Ki An-da’s hand went to the Bead at the center of his second necklace. The Bead-that-Called-Rainbow-Stars rattled in its cage, no longer warm as it had been, pinched between the king’s fingers for nearly a year. Most inscrutable of the Beads.
Ki An-da had expected Rainbow-Stars to guide his tower to a new world, a world he could remake for the pleasure of the gods. Instead, the gods had brought him and his settlers to an already inhabited world. A world whose men had displeased the gods, and required to be remade again.
But more importantly, a world whose sky had already been charted.
“The stars are very faint, sire,” said the astrologer. “The lights from the city interfere with our observations.”
Ki An-da’s hand strayed out to his fifth necklace, and a Bead-that-calls-Force. Flanked as it was by two Beads-that-Restrict, it would project a flat sheet of force, a cleaver that would slice this fool in two if he did not please his king.
“Even I can see that giant world in the sky,” Ki An-da said. “Do I need astrologers at all?”
The astrologer bowed very low, hands swept back and fingers splayed to show he held no Beads. Sweat beaded on the man’s bald pate.
“Yes. Sire. The world. It circles this one. It is certainly distinctive, is it not…?”
Ki An-da brought his fingers around the Bead-that-Calls-Force and the astrologer barked: “the Moon, sire.”
“The Moon.” Ki An-da had never heard the word before.
“We can’t be sure, sire. The legends are fragmentary. The prophesies,” he swallowed, “vague.”
“The prophesies.”
The king did not ask questions. His advisor answered anyway.
“Yes, sire. The Gods’ reward, sire. The wages of man’s toil. After we have made enough worlds bloom for them, the Gods will return us to the garden from which — ”
“Silence.” If the astrologer continued, Ki An-da might begin to tremble. He looked back up at the Moon, and felt an emotion he had not known for decades.
Gratitude.
The king stared up at that cratered face for long minutes, mastering himself. Finally, he spoke.
“After five thousand years, our work is done. The Gods have brought us home.”
“I think so, sire.”
Ki An-da brought himself back to business. “If you’re wrong, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Thank you, sire. To be certain one way or the other, we must see the other stars. The lights from the city…” The man, looked out over the rim of the tower, past his monarch. “…those strange lights.”
Ki An-da grunted. Strange lights indeed. They did not flicker like flames, stars, or the Beads-that-Call-Light. They shone like bronze or silver in sunlight, unwavering. Nor did the natives seem to posses weapons, or defenses, or any Beads-that-Spoke in anyway way Ki An-da’s alchemists had been able to recognize. They only flew around the tower in funny little air-boats or simply gathered around the foot of the tower and shouted in an incomprehensible language.
Weaklings, then. Or else fools who refrained from striking first. Let them be strengthened, then, let them be taught.
“Very well.” Ki An-da turned on the pinnacle of his tower. He faced the city, and his hands went to the Beads that hung down his chest. “Summon your men to the observation stations. I will put out these lights.”

August-2030
The sun is hot on my back, and my thighs burn with the effort of holding this position. My back doesn’t hurt, though. Those stretches work.
My face is full of leaves. They come in triplets, saw-edged, each the size of the space between my thumb and forefinger. Hard, unripe berries tap against my glasses. Somewhere too close, a yellow-jacket buzzes.
I put one hand down and reach with the other into the shadows, scattering leaf-hoppers. The sweat sticks to the inside of the glove as I squeeze the handles of the garden sheers. A growing resistance, then a dull snap, and a brown, prickly cane shudders behind the leaves.
The dead cane tears away from the bush like velcro, exposing a patch of soil, the wall of my parents’ house, and a small volume of empty space, dangling with raspberries.
I grab one and put it in my mouth. It tastes like the dirt and leather on my glove, ash from the recent forest fires, and decades of piled summers.
Raspberry canes take a year to grow up from the root, another to produce fruit, and then they die in the third. My job is to clear out the dead canes of last year to make room for next year’s shoots. I’m also exposing more of this year’s berries to my daughters and their cousins.
I wanted to do this in my garden, which is just old enough to have its own raspberries. They’re planted in rows away from the house, just the way my grandpa had them. And I have already done the chore of cutting out that patch’s first crop of dead canes. But my kids were firm: if we were going relive someone’s childhood today, it would be theirs.
I decide that my back is hurting after all and slowly stand.
My parents’ garden hasn’t changed much since Julia was a nine months old and pooping in the wading pool. The lilacs have grown thicker, the apple tree has died. The bird bath is now at our summer house three valleys south of here. Julia manipulated my parents into giving it to her.
But there’s still the enormous rhubarb plant next to the compost. To the east, beyond the rhubarb, the hill slopes down to the Interstate, the web of aerial traffic, and the houses, condos, restaurants, business incubators, network hubs, micro-factories, and silvopastures of Lolo, Montana.
Julia and Mikhaela move through the garden like a hummingbird and a lawnmower, respectively, with the other teenagers strung between them. Some are talking or doing incomprehensible things with their key-rings and charm-bracelets, but an impressive amount of berry-picking is still getting done. Mikhaela said she wanted to make a pie for the party, and they already have enough for two.
I glance to my right, where my younger daughter is methodically mowing her way down the raspberries. I can’t tell whether she’s listening to an audiobook or sharing her POV with some other kid in Saudi Arabia or just thinking her thoughts.
I remember my grandpa when he drove me home from the airport one summer. I had wanted to read a fantasy book, but he wouldn’t let me. He kept me talking that whole drive.
“What did you learn in drama camp today?” I ask her.
“Diegesis,” she says.
There’s a conversation starter! But my attempt at a follow-up question is interrupted by a delivery drone descending onto our lawn. Its brown plastic carapace is emblazoned with the logo of the nearest hub, which means only that this isn’t a delivery from a Lolo caterer or micro-factory. The kids could have ordered something from Seattle or New Zealand, and it would still get routed through the local hub. My guess, though, is that it comes from Sofia, Bulgaria.
“What did you forget to pack, Yooli?” I shout at my older daughter, Julia, as she runs toward the drone, waving her wallet-key.
Last summer, Julia packed almost nothing for our trip to the US. She told us she thought it would be easier to just mail herself stuff when she remembered she needed it. When we saw the international shipping bill, we got her her own bank account and wallet-key, which might have been the whole point of the exercise.
The drone sees her key, releases the box it was clutching, and zips back into the smoky air to join the sky-traffic.
“I didn’t forget anything.” Julia shakes her hair out of her face and lets go of her key-ring, which zips back to her belt on its recoil line. The belt is bright pink, with green and blue Kazakh embroidery patterns. Each key on the ring is a different color and pattern, for a different digital purpose. “This is for our party.”
She pulls open the self-storage box, revealing an irregularly-shaped pink crystal the size of a melon. It’s a salt-lamp.
Generational cycles are funny things. Growing up means doing whatever your parents didn’t do, but we all have a soft spot for our grandparents. I want to be firm and practical like my grandpa, Mikhaela wants to be strong-minded like my mom. My older daughter Julia, for her part, cultivates a free romantic spirit like my mother-in-law. This, for me, is an endless opportunity for spiritual growth.
“Your salt-lamp.” I repeat. “Why do you need a salt-lamp for a party? Why do you need your salt lamp? You could have ordered a brand new one and it would have been a lot cheaper.”
I know what she’ll say next: “it’s my money. You‘re the one who told me to get a job and now I have eighty.” I open my mouth to tell her that she still ought to save her money for something important. And what is it exactly that she’s doing in these eighty jobs anyway?
But Julia hoists the salt-lamp and says, “it has to be this one. My friends and I licked it into just the right shape.”
I have no idea how to respond to that. I close my mouth and process data while my daughter skips away, tongue-sculpted lamp cradled in her arms. I’ve been out-maneuvered again.
I strip off my gloves and hat and go to find my wife.
Pavlina is on the balcony, sipping chilled white wine with her brother and sister-in-law. They’ve lived in California since the early 2010s, and in some ways they’re more American than me.
“I need to go to the teenager party,” I tell Pavlina.
“Zashto? Ti li si tineidjar?” Why? Are you a teenager?
Pavlina’s brother lifts a bottle of beer in my direction. “Ne trevozhi, bre. Veche si imam pushkata.” This is an in-joke.
According to Bulgarian tradition, Julia’s and Mikhaela’s first teenager party means we adults are all exiled here, to my parents’ house. We’re supposed to have a party, too, but I suspect it will be more like a military command center. Lots of tense pacing while we try to imagine what chaos is unfolding on the front lines.
“What are you talking about?” My dad appears from the kitchen with a tray of cheese and the tactical situation becomes more complicated. Neither of my parents approve of the teenager party, and we’ve been tip-toeing around the topic all week.
“We could be in the attic,” I tell Pavlina. “Or the basement.”
“That is where I’ll lock you when you go insane, yes,” she says.
Pavlina’s brother cackles and my dad says “What?” in a tone that means “I am playing the doddering cyborg grandpa, but I really am angry that you’re talking over my head.”
“It’s the teenager party.” I look out over the balcony, where our kids are doing incomprehensible and scary things in the yard below us. “I mean, what if something happens?”
My dad doesn’t say, “exactly! We have to cancel this whole barbaric ritual.” He says, “I’m worried too.”
“Yooli and Mishi will take care of it,” Pavlina says. “That’s what they’re learning to do.”
“What if someone brings dope?”
“They’ll tell him to smoke it outside.”
I check to make sure my mom isn’t in earshot. “What if things get…physical?”
“Zdravko and Boris are big. They’ll beat him up.” These are Julia and Mikhaela’s cousins, who seem to be engaged in some a virtual sword-fight right now. Mikahela is directing it.
“Now you say, ‘there can be only one sun, one moon, and one great khan!'”
I look around for support, but even my dad is nodding. “You don’t need to worry about boys,” he says.
I pick up a piece of cheese. “Well, at least I got them to pick raspberries with me. Mishi’ll make a pie.”
Pavlina looks serenely out at the Sapphire Mountains. “Sore wa kokuteiru no tame da to itta yo.”
‘She told me they were for cocktails,’ in Japanese, a language which nobody within earshot speaks but me and my wife.
I try to slow my breathing.
It isn’t just the underage drinking. It’s the social situation. My kids keeping secrets from me. Me keeping secrets from my dad. I reach down inside of myself for that still, small, voice. It says “be honest.”
“Mikhaela is making cocktails?” I say.
Everyone stiffens.
The US and Bulgaria have very different ideas about what constitutes proper behavior for teenagers and police officers. My dad, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law now all agree that the teenager party is a terrible idea.
Pavlina, meanwhile, looks steadily at me, letting me know that I have now become her opportunity for spiritual growth.
I put my cheese down on the balcony railing. “I’m just worried. Our kids are going to be alone in the summer house, which we just finished. They’re going to be drinking and smoking and licking salt-lamps.”
“Huh?” says my brother in law.
“What’s going to happen? What are we going to do when something does happen?”
“You’ll deal with it.” Pavlina declares, standing. “Nali si moyat mesten vodach?” Aren’t you my native guide? Another in-joke.
She pats me on the shoulder. “In the mean time, meditate on trusting your children, or at least trusting God to watch over them.”
“The God of fools and children,” I mutter. But that still, small voice speaks to me. “Go pick some more raspberries,” it says.

The sun rose, and the sky separated from the Pacific Ocean.
The water stayed dark, but the air above lightened and developed clouds. They shone pink and hazy, stitched by the gleaming contrails of jets.
Golden Hour, thought Mike Loew, and shoved the sippy lip of the go-cup into his mouth for another desperate sip of coffee. His body still thought it was 10pm. His brain thought he should be in Hollywood. In his heart, Mike was very worried about what the salt and sand would do to his shoes.
“Um,” he said. “Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?”
It was an inane question to ask. Of course they were in the right place. Mike’s charges had woken him up an hour before dawn, fed these coordinates directly into the rental van’s AI, then dashed straight into the water as soon as the vehicle had parked. All that was visible now of the visitors were the little robot interpreters hovering over four ominous shadows below the waves.
Mike tried to think of other ways to politely phrase, “What the fuck do a bunch of non-human film critics have to do at the beach at dawn?”
“Certainly,” said one of the interpreters in the chirpy voice Mike had chosen for Sessile Probings, the non-human in charge. The official name of Sessile’s species was “Individuals Locked in Mutual Tensegrity,” but Mike privately called him a slime-fish.
“We have to wait an hour to get the tide,” said Sessile. “However, Octopus Iceberg was bored at the hotel.”
Mike glanced at a passing jogger, trying to force his brain to work. “Okay, so you wanted a morning swim before we drive up to Hollywood? I just need to know how far I should push back the meetings I’ve lined up for us.” Meetings with people who would never have given Mike the time of day back when he was trying to break into the industry. When he’d been the sort of idiot who thought you got a movie made by telling a good story.
Mike was a government functionary now, and much wiser. Or at least, he had thought he was wiser until this morning. He raised his go-cup and found it empty.
“We do not swim,” said Sessile. “We study film.”
Yes! Mike wanted to shout. That’s why I pulled strings to get myself assigned to you.
He closed his eyes. They’d told him about this in Beijing. Interpreters weren’t perfect. You needed to speak clearly and stay aware of alternate meanings. “I am confused,” he said. “Please restate.”
“Currently, I am studying this film on this rock.”
Mike tightened his grip on on his cup. He stared out over the water, a horrible realization swelling in his gut. “Sessile, what do you mean when you say ‘film?'”
“I will show you.” Shadows moved against the sand, and Sessile rose from the waves.
Sunlight glared off the spun glass globe of Sessile’s primary shell. Then the slime-fish rose to his full height and the sun was behind him, haloing the bloated head within. Sessile’s eel-like tail thrashed embedded in the column of slime that supported his fish-bowl head.
The slime hardened as Mike watched, its surface turning gray and cracked as water wept out of it. Rods pushed out of the mass, dangling snotty strands. Webs of mucus tightened, and these extruded limbs flexed.
A cluster of these limbs cradled a flat, smooth rock, about the size of a plate. It was also slimy. Everything within a foot of Sessile was slimy.
The non-human’s head pulsed within its spiked and blistered globe. Bubbles of air farted out of the depths of the tower of mucus. “Look at this, Mike,” the interpreter chirped. “I found a model film. This is a good example of a film.”
Mike wanted to fall to his knees and shake his empty coffee cup at the sky. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work! He was supposed to be in a Hollywood board room in an hour, facilitating deals and making connections. They had to respect him now! He was bringing them film critics from alternate Earths! Not…not marine biologists!
“I think,” he said, “that there has been a translation error.”
The training turned out to be worth the jetlag. Upon further discussion, Mike and Sessile managed to establish that a film was a series of sounds and images that told a story when projected in front of a human’s eyeballs. A biofilm, however, was a colony of bacteria that coordinated their behavior in order to change their environment. They secreted a number of fascinating compounds.
Mike nodded and looked down at his salt-stained shoes. “Good,” he mumbled. “Good. I’m glad we established that.”
Sessile had finished excreting his land-body. He tottered forward on a pair of spindly puppet-legs, a fishy eye bulging behind a lens-blister on his shell. “Mike, does the shape of the front of your head indicate that you are emotionally troubled?”
“No,” said Mike. “No, I’m just fine. Please don’t try to give me a hug.”
“I won’t hug you because it will be disgusting. But please wait a moment. I will call Octopus Iceberg. He studied the psychophysiology of mammals.”
Another monster loomed out of the depths, this one a plexiglass globe perched on top of a ring of articulated metal tentacles. Floating within the globe, veiled in fluttering jellyfish gowns, was an octopus.
Mike wasn’t a biologist or paleontologist, so he didn’t know how octopi had conquered Iceberg’s version of Earth, but the Convention of Sapient Species had much weirder members. At least he knew the two of them shared a love of audiovisual story-telling. Or so he had thought.
“Octopus Iceberg, I believe our native guide is upset,” said Sessile.
Metal tentacles tip-toed over the sand. Segmented suckers opened like camera shutters. Colors and textures flickered across the skin of the octopus. “Yes,” said its interpreter. “He has a mental state of frustration.”
“It’s just I worked hard to get this job because I thought we worked in the same industry,” said Mike.
The non-humans looked at each other.
“But you are a government official and we study film.”
Mike squeezed his eyes shut. “Biofilm! Interpreter, translate that word as ‘biofilm.'”
“There is a very important difference,” Sessile told Iceberg. “This ‘film’ is a tradition of human performance art that Human Mike hopes to participate in.”
“I understand. Human Mike, don’t be ashamed of making bad films. It is very important that you are helping science.”
“I didn’t give up because I couldn’t make a good movie,” Mike told the inside of his eyelids. Who cared what he told a bunch of marine biologists? It might as well be the truth. “I gave up because Hollywood is a corrupt pit where real art goes to die.”
There was some confusion while their interpreters chewed on the cultural context behind that explanation, which evolved into a longer diatribe about the industry in general.
“It’s just so cynical,” Mike found himself saying. “There’s this old boy’s club giving awards to each other. Calculated grabs for attention. Public personas instead of actual people. Just…” he waved his hands, “just lies. But everyone has to act like they believe, or else they get pushed out. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what they really think.”
The octopus and slime-fish looked at him.
“I am still confused,” said Sessile. “So, are there images paired with sounds?”
Mike groaned and clawed at his pocket. “Look. I’ll show you. Here’s the most critically acclaimed film of the past year.” He had it downloaded on his phone, and he watched it compulsively. It always depressed him.
“Look at this!” Mike said, thrusting the phone at the biologists. “That brown color palette. Those fake accents. It’s not a movie at all, it’s just a sign that says ‘this is intellectual.'”
“Yes,” said Sessile. “It seems completely incomprehensible. But only the most advanced art can resonate outside of its cultural background.”
“No, wait, I think I might like it,” said Iceberg. “The problem is that the quality of the display device is poor. Wait a moment.”
A message popped up on Mike’s phone. “New device connected,” followed by a long string of numbers and letters.
“I have connected my armor to your communication device.”
“You can watch movies on your exo-suit?” asked Mike.
“Of course. The entire inner surface is covered with visual displays.”
“Octopus Iceberg’s species sees with their skin and also eyes,” explained Sessile.
“Sure, why not?” Mike pressed “play.”
Iceberg’s skin prickled. Browns and grays marched across his body. “It is pleasant and soothing,” he said. “However, this effect is only effective when you are watching a movie with all eight arms.”
Mike shook his head in despair.
“What about the population?” asked Sessile.
“The population only has two arms.”
“I don’t understand. I mean what movies do most humans like to watch?”
“Oh, the public, you mean? They watch absolute garbage. Uh…look.” Mike found last season’s highlight reel from a reality show and cast it to Iceberg’s suit.
His tentacles stiffened. The fishbowl helmet sparkled with refracted images and his skin flashed red, white, and purple. “Inarticulate joy,” said the interpreter.
Sessile’s scarecrow body jerked, sending mucus flying. “Octopus Iceberg! Are you okay?”
Iceberg’s skin shivered. “This is the product of great and noble talent,” whispered the interpreter.
Mike looked at his phone to make sure he hadn’t selected the wrong video. “What? No! It’s just sex and shouting.”
“This art encompasses the essence of human existence.”
Sessile connected to Mike’s phone and his glass shell swam with images. “I understand your idea. This shows the purest form of interaction. Bacterial communities coordinate in a very similar way.”
Mike floundered. Every diplomatic instinct he possessed was saying “Just nod and smile and agree.”
But he couldn’t. Not after he’d bared my soul to these non-humans. These beings who he had thought were people. “No!” He stomped his expensive shoe on the sand. A cigarette butt went flying. “No, God damn it! This stuff is garbage! It’s stupid, Sessile.”
“We will teach you to appreciate it,” said the slime-fish.
“Yes,” said the octopus. “All that is needed for this film is proper analysis.”

Earlier this week, I asked for writing prompts, and the inimitable Emil Minchev responded: “Remember Solo? Do the opposite”

Okay, so…IN THE DISTANT FUTURE, IN THIS VERY GALAXY…

A wealthy, middle-aged woman named Foong Tandem stays on her comfortable, safe, and well-lit planet, where she joins the Rebellion.

She and her partner — a small, hairless, squeaky alien whose language everyone but Tandem can understand — are assigned to accompany a group of highly moral law-enforcers in a mission to prevent a train robbery. The chief of the mission becomes a mentor to Tandem, but in a shoot-out with the robbers, the mentor’s husband is killed. The loss devastates the mentor and Tandem, herself, and continues to be referenced throughout the rest of the story.

After a funeral ceremony for the dead husband, Rebel leadership sends Tandem — paired with an attractive older man whom she has never met before — to the glittering and clean campus of a tech startup. There, they recruit an engineer of high-speed space ships, who happily lends our hero her own ship.

Tandem, the most careful pilot in the galaxy, gets the ship safely past a white hole. After pausing to take pictures of the local wildlife, she arranges a mutually beneficial arrangement with a fuel-processing plant, ensuring a stable and dependable supply for the Rebellion. There are no damn robots.

The climax comes when Tandem’s team runs into those train-robbers again, who, dramatic reveal, are actually Imperial agents! And! Further reveal! The leader of the robbers turns out to be the son of Tandem’s mentor! That’s why the death of the mentor’s husband meant something!

Tandem’s mentor switches sides. She can’t bear to lose another family member, and in a heart-wrenching scene, Tandem nearly switches sides as well. But her love-interest convinces her that the cause of the Rebellion is more important even than the bonds of family. What sort of lives can any of them have if the Empire continues to expand?

There is a standoff, in which which Tandem’s team wins because of the strong ties of trust and comradeship they have made with each other on the course of the story. The mentor dies on a picturesque cliff, lamenting a galaxy in which such terrible choices must be made.

And so, with an Imperial plot exposed and a valuable piece of infrastructure secured for the Rebellion, Tandem and love-interest fly off on their next sensible adventure.

“Squeak!” Says the alien.
​
“You got that right, Crispy.”