Across the Black Hole

Nov.9th Jupiter time

Dear diary,

For someone who sags on the couch with snots hanging like a pocket watch during soap opera hours, I've lost count of the notebook pages blotched by black, oily tears.

So, dear diary, let's rewind my life in one go for the last time, in case someone wants to put this in the museum.

I'm going to spoil, dear diary, Angelica doesn't get the robot in the end. Can you believe it? Five years and six seasons, and she rejected I10-99 just because society forbids human-robot relationships. That is not my money wants to hear after spending on diluted one-year macronutrient drinks with five receipts. Alita: Battle Angel is better. 

Ah, scratch that, I'm starting to feel tiny flecks of heat pumping through my chest. I'm still waiting for movie two.

My rent terminates next year but I gave the exact money to the landlord this afternoon. I've been here for ten years, and her hair still cascades down like black silk to her hips. Her smile is always 45 degrees up and her fingers wraps around a cup of brewed oil. I moved here seeing the same thing but lying in bed, miserable with amnesia.

“Hi Ben, are you feeling any better?” my landlord said, sitting on a stool beside my bed.

I will forever treasure the shocked face I made when she knew my name. I couldn't even recall the first letter of the alphabet song. Did I meet her at the bar and did the do? If my brain could hallucinate any further, my room would be the smell of straight highway roads to the never-going-home destination.

“I'm your landlord,” she introduced herself and I call her "landlord" ten years from then. “... I'll take care of you for the next few days.”

My landlord registered a therapist after I settled my room. I lied, dear diary. My landlord carried mysterious packages to my room while I slept all way until Jupiter occupied the sky. My therapist is a walking architecture of art. His chest has a small turbine that whirls like my computer fan. His body is made of metal, stretching like branches from head to toe. Dear diary, I am not kidding when I say his body makes music as Scottish windpipes do when the wind blows.

“Yes, Ben. I'm a cyborg,” my therapist said. I was going to sue everyone for leaking personal data.  

“And you are a cyborg as well.” Ah, civil lawsuit, then.

I practiced in front of the mirror countless times before meeting my therapist.

“Hi... uh..., Mr. Stranger? That sounds like a superhero name... Mr. Therapist. That's better,” I said. “I only remember two things: my first name and my gender.”

Dear diary, by the fourth time I saw myself without a thing underneath my crotch, I wasn't so sure Biology was my grade-A subject anymore. So when my therapist told me that I'm a cyborg my whole life, my vocal cords suddenly sounded artificial to me. But I was relieved not to live on as a male human being without a vital organ.

“Then... is my landlord also a cyborg?”

“Everyone is a cyborg here, Ben.”

I felt like drowning, dear diary. Is there a species called human, because I swear I'd aced Anatomy in high school! My face grew hot and my neck twisted in a way I could dig my head under my right armpit. I was surprised the hairiness of my underarm was never a sensation. Awesome! I get to be a fictional character without cosplay.

Except it's not. Awesome. I could live with oil of different brands and cooking methods all right, my ass. After a week, without having my memory back, I asked my therapist if restaurants exist in this block. 

“On Blitz, oil and macronutrients are what we have.” my therapist patted my head and let the wind play some relaxing music with his body.

Now dear diary, "Blitz" is not jargon from an online game, it's a planet where I live and will leave tomorrow morning. 

“So this isn't Earth?” I said.

“Ah, Earth,” said my therapist, “that's a legend to us now.”

Cyborgs don't get dressed. I spent 365 days feeling naked and nine years walking around, letting the citizens enjoy the view. My landlord said that the body armor I'm wearing belongs to a robot cop. The broad chest and strong thighs explain well. My body was neon blue but when I run, my chest ignites the metal red like a setting sun.

The space agency and I clicked like long lost soulmates. The interview was tedious. However, dear diary, as soon as I met my crew, this planet wasn't black and white anymore.  

My therapist keeps on visiting me when Jupiter lies in front of my window. He introduced me to a drama series, Across the Black Hole, which the one I've spent five years watching and crying when every episode comes. I never figure out the reason why my therapist wants me to feel my lungs sucked out all the air and watch my inky tears ruin another couch. But I'm obsessed with it.

Angelica, why can't you ignore the law and be with I10-99? Is it so hard for you to be the bad girl when you already know the law is outdated?

Dear diary, some things sure happened without expecting. Across the Black Hole did trigger my memory though. The opening song was on when I was brewing oil, and little Angelica popped on the screen.

“Daddy,” she said, “Is it true there's another galaxy behind the black hole?”

“Of course there is, Angelica,” I said, mixing the oil with macronutrient, “It's already a fact since 3020.”

I got suck into a flashback with three people chatting in a blurry background.

“It's a one-way ticket,” said a bearded man, which I recognized as thirty-year-old human me. “None of us are going to make it alive.”

“I agree with Ben,” said a petite woman, my wife, Angelica.

“The Mirror Black Hole Theory has won The Shaw Prize,” said one of the crew members. “There is indeed another solar system across the Black Hole.”

“There's no way back, Angelica. Your husband's going to be a hero when he comes back.”

“Except he's not,” I said. The door sign crashed to the ground.

Dear diary, in case someone finds you on the desk and decides you be one of the milestones in cyborg history, The Mirror Black Hole Theory explanation is below this sentence.

Some brilliant scientist believed that the Black Hole serves as a bridge between two galaxies. Both galaxies are reflections of each other. During the Shaw Prize speech, the scientist proved that both galaxies contain the same amount of solar systems. All planet masses and the distance between one another in the solar system are the same as their counterparts.

The only thing I could remember during the speech was the name of Earth's counterpart, Blitz. The next year, the space agency sent five astronauts to space to prove the theory. I was one of them; however, it wasn't until the last day with Angelica that I figured out this trip might be a death trail.

The oil left my right foot a stigma and I missed out on the whole episode. I ran to my therapist and then to my space agency on Blitz, bursting out all the information my brain contained until my body spasmed. The next five years until Across the Black Hole ends were the years for me to get back to Earth and for them to prove the theory right. 

I never recall the memory during the trip inside the black hole. As far as my body tells me, I feel the tremors and the pressure every time my eyes closed. It's like my body squeezes out all the oxygen and the blood stops circulating while being pressured and diced into small molecules repeatedly. My therapist and landlord said the citizens found me breathing while half of my body was gone. My human nerves were black when they attached the body armor with my head.

Five hours until Jupiter sets. I'm going to feel that sensation once again. Maybe it will feel good if the destination is Earth. Somehow my stomach starts churning when I imagine getting together with my Angelica again.

Dear diary, sleep tight. I am going across the Black Hole tomorrow.