Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu
Prelude
I only remembered that it was my birthday because Mom and Dad lit the candles on the cake and we sat down around fourteen small tongues of flame.
The storm that night made it seem as if the whole universe held nothing but rapid flashes of lightning surrounding our small dining room. Electric blue bursts froze the rain into solid drops for an instant, forming dense strands of glittering crystal beads suspended between heaven and earth. A thought struck me: the world would be a fascinating place if that instant were sustained. You could walk through streets hung with crystal, surrounded on all sides by the sound of chimes. But in such a dazzling world, the lightning would be unbearable....?I had always seen a different world from the one others saw. I wanted to transform the world: that was the one thing I knew about myself at that age.
The storm had started earlier in the evening, and the thunder and lightning had quickened their pace as it progressed. At first, after each flash, my mind retained an impression of the ephemeral crystalline world outside the window as I tensed in anticipation of the peal of thunder. But the lightning had grown so thick and fast that I could no longer distinguish which thunderclap belonged to which bolt.
On a stormy night, you get a sense of how precious family really is. The warm embrace of home is intoxicating when you imagine the terrors of the outside world. You feel for those souls without a home, out there in the open, shivering through the storm and lightning. You want to open a window so they can fly in, but the outside world is so frightening that you cannot let even the tiniest breath of cold air enter the warmth inside.
“Ah, life,” Dad said, and downed his drink. Then, staring intently at the cluster of candle flames, he said, “Life is so random, all probability and chance. Like a twig floating in a brook, caught on a stone or seized by an eddy—”
“He’s too young. He doesn’t understand this stuff,” Mom said.
“He’s not young!” said Dad. “He’s old enough to learn the truth about life!”
“And you know all about that,” Mom said, with a sarcastic laugh.
“I know. Of course I know!” Dad poured another glass and drank half, then turned to me. “Actually, son, it’s not hard to live a wonderful life. Listen to me. Choose a tough, world-class problem, one that requires only a sheet of paper and a pencil, like Goldbach’s Conjecture or Fermat’s Last Theorem, or a question in pure natural philosophy that doesn’t need pencil and paper at all, like the origin of the universe, and then throw yourself entirely into research. Think only of planting, not reaping, and as you concentrate, an entire lifetime will pass before you know it. That’s what people mean by settling down. Or do the opposite, and make earning money your only goal. Spend all of your time thinking about how to make money, not about what you’ll do with it when you make it, until you’re on your deathbed clutching a pile of gold coins like Monsieur Grandet, saying: ‘It warms me...’ The key to a wonderful life is a fascination with something. Me, for example—” Dad pointed to the watercolors lying all over the room. They were done in a very traditional style, properly composed, but lacking all vitality. The paintings reflected the lightning outside like a set of flickering screens. “I’m fascinated with painting even though I know I can’t be van Gogh.”
“That’s right. Idealists and cynics may pity each other, but they’re really both fortunate,” Mom mused.
Ordinarily all business, my mother and father had turned into philosophers, as if it were their own birthday we were celebrating.
“Mom, don’t move!” I plucked a white hair out of my mother’s thick, black mane. Only half of it was white. The other half was still black.
Dad held the hair up to the light and examined it. Against the lightning it shone like a lamp filament. “As far as I know, this is the first white hair your mother has had in her entire life. Or at least the first that’s been discovered.”
“What are you doing! Pluck one, and seven will grow back!” Mom said, giving her hair an exasperated toss.
“Really? Well, that’s life,” Dad said. He pointed to the candles on the cake: “Suppose you take one of these small candles and stick it into a desert dune. If there’s no wind you may be able to light it. Then: leave. What would it feel like to watch the flame from a distance? My boy, this is what life is, fragile and uncertain, unable to endure a puff of wind.”
The three of us sat in silence, looking at the cluster of flames as they shivered against the icy blue lightning that flashed through the window, as if they were a tiny life-form that we had painstakingly raised.
Outside, lightning flashed dramatically.
This time, though, the arc came in through the wall, emerging like a spirit from an oil painting of a carnival of the Greek gods. It was about the size of a basketball, and shone with a hazy red glow. It drifted gracefully over our heads, followed by a tail that gave off a dark red light. Its flight path was erratic, and its tail described a confusingly complicated figure above us. It whistled as it floated, a deep tone pierced with a sharp high whine, calling to mind a spirit blowing a flute in some ancient wasteland.
Mom clutched fearfully to Dad with both hands, an action I have looked back on in anguish my entire life. If she had not done that, I might have one relative left alive today.
The thing continued to drift like it was looking for something. It finally stopped and found it, hanging about half a meter over my father’s head. Its whistle became deeper and intermittent, like bitter laughter.