The Sky Above, the Rivers Below, Ch 5: Messages from Home

While this new world spun on with its relentless lights and effortless magic, Sook-ja knew that back in her village, the rhythm of life was still measured by the sun, the seasons, and the ever-present shadow of hardship – a shadow that stretched even here, through Chronic's miraculous talking screens.

The notice arrived with a soft, steady chime from the main communication panel in their small apartment. It was a sound that always made Sook-ja's breath catch. "Incoming Call – From: Joseon Sector, D150000R5," the translated text glowed. It had been two full cycles of this new world's bizarre, unchanging "months" since the last word from home. Each call was a special thing, Chronic reminded them. It was an expensive link to a past they were supposed to be leaving behind. For Sook-ja, it was a recurring wound.

Yong-joon had been staring blankly at some "educational program" about the mating habits of creatures from a time three levels above. He grunted and got up. Min-ji was quietly practicing the alien, sharp letters this world used on her learning-slate. She looked up, her eyes wide with a mix of worry and a child's faint hope.

Sook-ja's hands trembled as she touched the panel to accept the call. The screen flickered, then showed a shaky, indistinct image. Her older brother, Sang-chul, his face deeply lined and looking much older than his years, squinted into the distance. It was as if he was trying to see through the very mists of time that separated them. Behind him, Sook-ja could just make out the familiar, humble thatched roof of their family home. It looked smaller and more run-down than she remembered.

"Sook-ja? Yong-joon? Can you… can you hear me?" Sang-chul's voice, translated by the chip, was thin and frayed, full of static.

"Yes, elder brother, we hear you," Yong-joon said. His own voice was rough, trying to hide the feelings that Sook-ja knew were stirring inside him.

"The connection is… poor today," Sang-chul said, his image flickering again. "The rains have been heavy. The river… it took part of the lower field again."

A frigid void opened in her stomach. The lower field was their best land, the one that might have given them a little extra. "Every word from home is like a stone on my heart," she thought, the familiar ache starting. "They suffer, and I am here in this land of sterile magic, unable to help them."

"And Mother?" Sook-ja asked, her voice barely a whisper. "How is she?"

Sang-chul's face, already full of worry, seemed to grow darker. "Her cough is… always there. The village healer has no more herbs for it. He says… he says her life energy is weak." He paused, and Sook-ja knew what that meant. "She asks for you often, little sister. She wonders if… if the air in that faraway land is cleaner."

A silence stretched, filled with the screen's static. Sang-chul's face, already a mask of hardship, seemed to close off further. Cleaner air, a better life. The promises Chronic had whispered. But what good was cleaner air to Sook-ja when her mother was fading, her breath stolen by the damp and the poverty they had run from?

"Tell her… tell her we pray for her to get better," Sook-ja managed, tears stinging her eyes. "Tell her Min-ji is… studying hard." She pushed Min-ji gently forward. "Say hello to your uncle, child."

Min-ji bowed awkwardly towards the screen. "Annyeonghaseyo, Uncle."

Sang-chul's tired eyes softened a little as he looked at his niece. "Ah, Min-ji. You look… well. Are they treating you kindly in that unfamiliar place? Are you learning much?"

"Yes, Uncle," Min-ji said, her voice small.

"Good, good," Sang-chul murmured. Then his gaze hardened again. "The magistrate… he wants the rice payment early this year. And young Bok-nam, from down the lane… his son won a place in the Chronic labor camps. They hope… they hope he might win a lottery like yours one day. His mother sends her greetings, and asks if… if there is any way you could send something. Even a little. For the children."

The request, so common, so impossible to fulfill, was like another twist of the knife. Send something? From where? Their Chronic money barely covered the cost of the alien food from the dispenser. They had nothing valuable from this new world, nothing that could be turned into rice or medicine in Joseon.

Yong-joon cleared his throat. "Brother, I stand on a line for ten hours making parts for a machine I don't understand. They give us food and a roof, but not a single coin we can hold. My hands build their future, but there is nothing—nothing—I can send home."

Sang-chul's gaze was hard to read. Was it disappointment? Acceptance? "I understand," he said, though Sook-ja doubted he truly could. How could he understand a world where food appeared from a wall but you couldn't grow an extra handful of rice to send home? "Just… take care of yourselves. And Min-ji. She is… she is the family's hope now."

The screen flickered badly, then went dark. The connection was lost.

The screen went dark. The only sound was the faint, ever-present hum of the building's life support. The air in the room seemed to thin, each breath a conscious effort. Yong-joon turned away, his shoulders slumped. Min-ji looked down at her slate, her small face troubled.

Sook-ja sank onto the floor. The sterile, smooth surface gave no comfort. The weight of her brother's words, her mother's failing health, the desperate hope of her village – it all pressed down on her. Her brother's face, aging too fast. The thatched roof, sinking. Her mother's cough, a ghost in the static. And here? This sterile, smooth floor. This clean, empty air. A trade, the thought was a shard of glass in her mind. A betrayal. She had run from hardship, only to find herself trapped by a new kind of helplessness. She was watching from far away as her loved ones suffered, unable to lift a finger to help.

The crushing ache from her brother's message stayed for days. It was a dull pain under the surface of their alien new life. But three days after the call, the desperation drove Sook-ja from their small apartment. Perhaps in the communal spaces, among the other displaced families, she might find someone who had discovered a way to send help home. Perhaps someone had found work that paid in something more than shelter and sustenance.

She made her way to the shared dining hall, a place she usually avoided because of its noise and the unsettlingly casual way people acted there. She was waiting for their share of nutrient paste when she overheard a familiar voice. It was rich and musical even through the chip's translation. Jamila Ahmed, the wealthy woman from Bombay, was seated at a nearby table with her son, Imran. She was having a lively, though clearly frustrating, call on her personal communication slate.

"No, no, Zafar, you misunderstand!" Jamila was saying, her forehead wrinkled. "The indigo shipments must be sent through the Dutch traders, not the Company directly, not until this new tax nonsense is sorted out! And what about the warehouse repairs? Is the new manager competent, or is he as useless as the last one?"

Sook-ja pretended to be busy with the dining hall's news screen, but she listened with a kind of distant wonder. Indigo shipments. Taxes. Warehouse managers. These were the worries of a world so far from her own, it might as well have been another planet, not just another time. Jamila sounded annoyed, certainly, maybe even angry. But there was no sound of desperation in her voice, no fear of starving or losing everything soon. Her problems were about managing wealth, about dealing with complicated trade, not about whether there would be enough rice to get the family through the winter.

Sook-ja's hope withered. There would be no solution here, no secret knowledge of how to transform their sterile new existence into something that could save her mother. She left the dining hall emptier than when she had entered.

A few days later, still carrying the leaden weight of helplessness, Sook-ja saw Margaret Shepard in the small, shared green space. Residents were encouraged to "do cross-time gardening therapy" there (which mostly meant staring at bizarre, glowing plants). The American woman was sitting alone on a bench. She held a thin data-film in her hand, and her face looked troubled. Sook-ja, remembering their brief connection at the children's party, gave a hesitant bow as she passed.

Margaret looked up. A polite but distant smile touched her lips. "Good day, Mrs. Kim." She gestured vaguely with the data-film. "Just… letters from home. Always a bother."

Sook-ja, feeling a sudden curiosity, or perhaps just a need to feel less alone in her own worries, asked, "Is there… troubling news from your homeland, Mrs. Shepard?"

Margaret sighed, her gaze distant. "Troubling in its own way, I suppose. Arguments over who inherits land, my late aunt's property in a mess. The lawyers are being… difficult. And the social duties… it seems one can never truly escape them, no matter how many centuries one travels."

Land inheritance. Lawyers. Social duties. Again, Sook-ja was struck by the vast gap between their worlds. Margaret's face was lined with worry, yes, but it was the worry of managing property, of keeping up a certain social position. It was not the raw, immense fear Sook-ja felt for her mother's very life, for her village's survival.

Sook-ja continued her slow walk. Jamila's voice echoed in her mind—indigo shipments, new tax nonsense. Then, her brother's voice, thin and frayed—the river, mother's cough. The two worlds existed side-by-side in her thoughts, impossibly apart. "Their path here was paid for with gold, with connections and money. Ours was won by a desperate hope, a gamble that feels thinner and weaker with each passing day."

Understanding this didn't make her own sadness smaller, but it added a layer of bitter clarity. They were not all in the same boat, not really. Some had arrived with life rafts and supplies. Others, like the Kims, had been thrown overboard with nothing but the promise of learning to swim in a hostile sea. And the weight of those left behind, for families like hers, was like a current that threatened to pull them under.

She often came here when Yong-joon was at his long shifts in the Chronic factory and Min-ji was at her lessons. She came seeking a little bit of solitude, though true solitude was impossible with the ever-present hum of the building and the chip translating the distant murmurs of other lives.

Today, Margaret Shepard was also there. She was seated on a bench near a group of glowing fungi that pulsed with a soft, melancholy blue light. The American woman looked tired. Her shoulders were less straight than usual. Her gaze was fixed on the rain. There was a tightness around her eyes that Sook-ja recognized, not from their brief, polite meetings, but from her own reflection on very hard days. It was the look of a mother carrying an immense, unseen weight.

Sook-ja hesitated. Proper behavior said she should nod and pass by, leaving the other woman to her thoughts. But something in Margaret's slumped posture, a vulnerability that matched her own, made Sook-ja pause. The memory of the children's party, that small, delicate bubble of shared hope, stayed with her.

She walked towards the bench slowly. "Mrs. Shepard? May I… sit for a moment?"

Margaret startled slightly, then offered a weak smile. "Of course, Mrs. Kim. Please."

Sook-ja settled beside her, keeping a respectful distance between them. The silence stretched, filled only by the sound of the fake rain and the faint, pulsing light of the fungi.

"The children," Margaret said at last, her voice quiet, "they seem to be… getting used to things. More quickly than us, perhaps."

Sook-ja nodded. "Min-ji… she learns the new words, the new ways, like a thirsty young plant drinking water. Sometimes… sometimes it frightens me."

Margaret turned to her then. Sook-ja saw the tiredness in her eyes deepen with a flicker of understanding. "Frightens you? Why?"

"That she will… forget," Sook-ja confessed. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "Forget who she is, where she comes from. That this new world, with all its… its alienness, will swallow her whole, and leave no trace of the Korean girl she was."

Margaret was silent for a long moment. Her gaze went back to the falling rain. "I understand that fear," she said softly. "Thomas… he tries so hard to fit in, to be like the other children here. But this place… it looks at him, at us, and it sees… something else. Something from before. And I worry that he will never be allowed to be just Thomas. That he will always carry the burden of… of things he had no part in."

Sook-ja listened to the pain underneath Margaret's words. It was a familiar ache, the one all mothers carried. "That American woman," she thought, a surprising wave of shared feeling washing over her. "Her eyes hold a worry that is like my own, though her burdens are clearly different, crushing in ways I can't imagine. We both fear for our children in this alien land. We fear they will be lost, or broken, or changed into something we don't recognize. Perhaps all mothers carry the same ache, no matter their position or the sins of their ancestors."

"It is… difficult," Sook-ja said. The word was a vast understatement. "To guide them, when we ourselves are so lost. To teach them what is right and proper, when all the rules here are new and confusing."

"And when you feel you are always being watched," Margaret added, her voice barely a whisper. Her eyes flicked around the empty garden as if the glowing plants themselves had ears. "Judged. Found to be not good enough."

Sook-ja nodded slowly. She understood that particular fear all too well, though she suspected Margaret's reasons for feeling it were more specific, more aimed at her. The Chronic officials, with their constant checking and plans for fitting in, made everyone feel like a flawed sample under a magnifying glass.

"We can only… do our best," Sook-ja murmured, more to herself than to Margaret. "Pray they hold onto the good things from our old lives, even as they learn to walk in this new one."

Margaret let out a long, shaky breath. "Our best. Yes. Sometimes I wonder if it's enough." She looked at Sook-ja. There was a quick, almost desperate connection in her gaze. "Thank you, Mrs. Kim. For… understanding."

Sook-ja offered a small, hesitant smile. "We are… mothers, Mrs. Shepard. In any world, that is a crushing task."

It wasn't much, but for Sook-ja, this small moment of togetherness was a tiny comfort. It was a reminder that even in this place of profound loneliness, she was not entirely alone in her motherly fears.

The brief moment of shared understanding with Margaret Shepard faded as quickly as the perfect rain. It left Sook-ja once more alone with her worries. The news from Joseon, her mother's worsening cough, and the village's quiet desperation – these things settled back into her heart, leaden and bitter. Yong-joon's long hours at the Chronic factory brought in just enough money for their clean, empty life. But there was no extra, no hope of sending help back home. Their "opportunity," won by the slim chance of a lottery, felt more like a trap with each passing day.

All her hope, all the reason for their enormous, heartbreaking decision to leave, now rested on Min-ji's small shoulders. Min-ji was indeed learning with a speed that was unsettling. She used the school's learning-slates with an ease that both amazed and alarmed Sook-ja. She chattered about "time mechanics" and "culture theory between levels," phrases that were meaningless noise to her mother. She even seemed to enjoy the bizarre, artificial music the future-born children listened to. Sometimes she hummed the peculiar tunes under her breath.

One evening, Sook-ja watched as Min-ji, hunched over her slate, laughed aloud at something on the screen. It was some brightly colored, fast-moving cartoon that Sook-ja found completely absurd.

"What is so funny, child?" Sook-ja asked, her voice sharper than she meant it to be.

Min-ji looked up. Her eyes were bright with the screen's reflected light. "Oh, Eomeoni, it's just this show, 'Cosmic Cadets.' They travel to different times and have adventures! This one is trying to teach a rock creature from a silicon-based level how to dance!"

Sook-ja stared at her daughter. A rock creature? Dancing? "This is the learning they offer?" she thought with a rush of sadness. "They teach her dancing rocks, while her grandmother coughs her life away for want of simple herbs."

"Min-ji," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "Do you remember the stories your Halmoni used to tell? About the loyal daughter Shim Cheong, who gave her life for her blind father? About the brave Choe Chi-won, who tricked the Chinese emperor?"

Min-ji's smile faded slightly. "Yes, Eomeoni. Of course." But her gaze drifted back to the glowing screen.

The fear in Sook-ja's heart grew stronger. Min-ji was enjoying this nonsense. Accepting it. The new world wasn't just teaching her daughter; it was winning her over, and Sook-ja felt a slow, bitter dread at what was being lost. Was this the price of success in this new world? To forget the old stories, the old ways, the very core of being Korean?

Yet, what was the alternative? For Min-ji to fail here, to be unable to adjust? That would mean their sacrifice, their leaving home and family, was for nothing. They would be trapped, two generations of Kims lost between worlds, belonging nowhere. The pressure from Chronic to fit in, the small and not-so-small reminders that their being allowed to stay depended on "successful integration," were always there.

Sook-ja felt torn in two. She desperately wanted Min-ji to succeed, to master this new world's knowledge, to have a future that was more than the back-breaking work and constant worry they had known. But every step Min-ji took towards that future seemed to take her further away from her roots, from the quiet dignity and strength Sook-ja had always believed was their greatest quality.

Later that night, after Yong-joon and Min-ji were asleep, Sook-ja sat alone in the dim light of the apartment. She reached into the small silk pouch where she kept her few treasures and pulled out a small, smooth stone. She had picked it up from the banks of the river that flowed past her village, years ago, on a rare, peaceful afternoon. She closed her hand around it. Its coolness was a familiar comfort.

The weight of expectation on Min-ji felt immense, a crushing burden for a child. Sook-ja closed her eyes. Her lips moved in a silent, desperate prayer. "Oh, spirits of my ancestors, protect her," she pleaded. "Guide my daughter. Let her learn what she must to survive in this alien land, but do not let her heart forget the soil she came from. Let her succeed, yes, but not by losing her soul."

This "opportunity," won by the lottery, bound them here. It had promised a new beginning, but every day it felt more like an anchor, holding them in place while the current of their old life pulled away, leaving their family to drift into the distance. And Min-ji, her beloved daughter, was the one who had to walk that tightrope. The hopes and fears of her family rested entirely upon her small, learning shoulders.

***