By Shane Roeschlein
All rights reserved.
Dawn. Low earth orbit.
The satellite’s photo voltaic cells mirror the curvature of the earth’s atmosphere inducing a chiaroscuro of its fuselage and telemetry antennae array. As it moves incrementally from darkness to light a bay door opens and an innocuous mechanical assemblage emerges from its darkened recess.
The onboard camera resolves in a resolution of 25cm. Producing an image of stunning clarity from approximately six hundred kilometers in the sky. When commanded it can focus grid-like on any given location: a city street; the sequence of numbers on a license plate; wing coverts of a pigeon perched on a wire.
It has established a complete photographic documentation of the earth.
Ignition…
The eleven rings of the Bessel beam push the cells into a protean chorale.
Cellular harmonics lift the spectrum into new verticalities of energy.
They also push.
They pulse and plush.
It is immaculate, rigid, and unbroken. A perfect, self-healing cylinder. The azure ray extends downward. Earthbound.
On the planet’s surface there is silence as the simulation renders. The illusion extends laterally and medially across continents and oceans.
God’s bated breath.
Shane Roeschlein is a writer, activist, and musician who lives in San Diego, California. His texts have appeared in The Journal of Experimental Fiction, Pacific Review, Mighty Mercury, and Fiction International.
This story is included in Issue #45: About Seeing. Copyright © 2012 by Fiction International. Authors of individual works retain copyright, with the restriction that subsequent publication of any text be accompanied by notice of prior publication in Fiction International. Please contact the editor for reprinting information.
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