——for the second "wet imprint" on the parchment of the Blackenberg Chronicle
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Time: 20 July 2075, Sunday, 22:10 hrs – 04:37 hrs next day
Places: end of Pier T4, Hangzhou Xiaoshan → baggage tunnel B3, old-sector Zürich → north-city inn "Zum Raben"
Personae:
1. Li Xiang (29, post-doc in archaeology, violet beginning to halo his irises)
2. Two of the "Four Sisters" – Elvira (platinum-gold hair), Veronica (moon-silver hair, voice only, inside the headset)
3. Urs, Swiss cabin-attendant, 17th year on night shift, vaccine-scar on his neck like a copper rivet gone black
4. The Pilot – no face, only breathing, as if tape were running backwards
5. Copernicus, one-eyed black tom, tail-tip forever dipped in yesterday's ink
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Scene I – Gate: last hot Americano
22:10. Xiaoshan T4, corridor terminus.
Lights 4000 K, cold-white, pinning shadows to the floor like specimens fixed in formalin – same batch as the ICU hallway.
Li Xiang holds a cheap hot Americano; a perfect heart of crema floats on top. In the next second the heart splits, sliced by a blade of darkness. A mote of coppery violet powder drifts out of the fissure, whirls once, sinks.
"Sir, time to board." The ground-hostess's cuff bears a silver wing-badge; its rim glints cold blue. He hands over his pass; the metal burns instant oven-heat into his fingertip. He jerks back – a perfect wing-blister has already risen: skin blanched, centre vesicled, identical to the bat-wing + cog + DNA sigil in Uncle's notebook.
"Congratulations, you've been chosen." Her whisper is surface-noise lifted from an old record.
Outside the jet-bridge rain falls in red sheets where the beacon strikes it. A 787 surfaces like a whale, radome dripping, maw open and black.
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Scene II – First Class: the "black hole" of seat 14A
22:40. Cabin lights tuned to "aurora-violet"; every metal armrest wrapped in beige suede – no silver anywhere, he realises too late.
Headphones are handed out: Sony 1998 discontinued, plastic yellowed. One file pre-loaded: "Lee_Xiang_2075".
He presses PLAY. Blankness – then a heartbeat: thump… thump… thump… perfectly locked to his own. Behind it, a second heart, half a beat faster, sitting inside his spine yet invisible.
"Something to drink?" A blonde attendant leans in – name-tag "E. Vira". He blinks; she is suddenly Asian, hair merely a violet reflection.
"Mineral water, please."
The bottle touches his palm; clinging to the condensation is a wafer of lambskin. Micro-Gothic German appears as the water darkens it:
"Über den Wolken wird die Zeit ein Brunnen."
Above the clouds time becomes a well.
The parchment sublimates before he can exhale.
The seat-screen wakes: route map. At hr 7 min 11 the aircraft will cross 47.5°N, 8.0°E – the very coordinates in the ghost-email. A countdown starts in the corner: 06:59:59… someone has pre-written his destination into the FMS.
He glances sideways: night is being planed like wood, cloud-grain spiralling toward a centre that leaks the same violet light once shown on Uncle's monitor – the 100 % perfect flatline.
He understands: he is not flying to Zürich; he is being decanted into a sky-well.
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Scene III – Bagage-Tunnel: the hand-cart of the faceless pilot
CET 04:37. Landed 27 min early. Tunnel B3, old sector. Tubes strobe every ten metres like dying fluorescents.
Li Xiang is the last passenger still waiting. The belt clacks to a halt – then jerks back to life, delivering an extra black suitcase: vintage aluminium frame, copper corners, tag "Lee Xiang 1975". Leather luggage label:
RETURN TO NIGHT – HS
No silver. He reaches; the case topples, latches snap. Inside: only a pilot's goggles, lenses cracked, fissures filled with dried maroon. Beneath them a boarding pass: Zürich–Hangzhou, 21.7.1975 – exactly a century ago.
The instant his fingertips brush the cracks the brown floods back into scarlet; blood races along the fractures, builds an open eye with vertical goat-slit pupil. It blinks once; droplets splash, spread into a capillary net that scurries toward his radial artery.
"Need a trolley?" A male voice behind him.
He slams the lid – nobody there. Only an empty cart rolls up, wheels clacking like a propeller. On its handle hangs a leather flying helmet, sweat-ring inside turned black, reeking of maple and Burley tobacco. The same cargo-note of Uncle's notebook – rust, burning rubber, sour mud – refrigerated here for a hundred years.
He pockets the goggles; the metal frame pings softly against the zip, a radar lock.
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Scene IV – Gasthaus "Zum Raben": key carved from bone
05:15. North-old-town, cobbles glazed frog-skin by dawn rain. Signboard: painted raven, left eye gouged, mirror-glass inserted, stretching every reflection until it tries to crawl out of two dimensions.
Desk unmanned; only Copernicus crouches beneath twelve hooks. Eleven metal keys; No. 9 is a length of yellow bone, semi-transparent, honeycombed. The tom's single eye fixes on Li Xiang; tail flicks the bone key – miaow, as if calling the number.
As he lifts it the cat rears, fever-hot pads on the back of his hand. The wing-blister bursts; serous fluid spatters the bone, sucked into the pores, a violet filament lights inside like a charging diode.
The grandfather clock strikes half a beat – tongue caught by nothing, echo swallowed. Door 9 unlocks itself, yawning black. The cat darts in, inks across the floor in wet footprints that auto-script:
Willkommen.
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Scene V – Room 9: ceiling leaks "time"
Ceiling 3.5 m high, yet the bed is dwarf-low, four cast-iron bat-claws welded to steel plates in the floor. No lamp; only a circular service hatch where the cover has been slid aside – a mouth of inverted well, black absolute.
He drops his pack, splashes water on his face. A drop of "black water" falls from the hatch – soundless, drills a perfect 8 mm bore through the plank, edges carbonised, smoking. Seven drops, Big-Dipper pattern; each hole exudes deeper black, as if perforating the underfloor.
He crouches, shields with the cracked goggles. The lenses hiss, fracture-web sucks the black in; maroon and obsidian whirl into a pin-screen:
Same room, 21 July 1975. A man in leather bomber-jacket turns away, stuffing a vellum folio into a 29-inch suitcase – profile of young Li Haoran, but unlined, twenty at most. He senses the gaze, looks up, smiles across the half-century:
"Jump down if you want to see real sky."
The goggles implode to ash – powder blacker than black, fills the seven holes, stitches time shut. Floor flawless; only Li Xiang remains, kneeling.
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Scene VI – Dream: pilot & the blood-flight
He opens his eyes on the low bed, room ink-black outside. Rain has ceased; an engine idles on the roof. Copernicus sits on his chest, eye become radar screen blinking: FLIGHT 1975 · BOARDING.
On the aerial ladder stands the pilot, goggles cracked, shirt blood-soaked, 29-inch case in hand – Haoran's. He beckons, voice vibrating inside the drum:
"One passenger still missing."
Li Xiang looks: he is wearing the same blood-shirt; the bone key has forked into a boarding card – flight HS1975, seat 14A, date 1975-7-21, return sector.
The pilot takes it; violet writing surfaces:
"Wenn du das liest, bin ich schon zurück zur Nacht."
When you read this, I am already back into the night – subject reversed from the notebook's loose leaf.
Somewhere a voice shouts: "Jump!"
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Scene VII – Wake = fate
He jerks upright – broad day, 22 July 2075, Tuesday, 07:30. Room ordinary, floor intact, cat gone. No photograph on the night-table. He spins the bedside top; only when it clatters does he reach the window, fling it open – Zürich old-town sunlit, crowds ordinary. He inhales sunlight like an elixir.
Spreading his hand he tells himself:
"I have arrived in Zürich. Let the truth come quickly."
Then, half-smiling:
"Or let me be wrong – call it a holiday, a reward for this stomach that loves foreign food."