Get an exclusive preview of The Only Living Girl on Earth by Charles Yu.
Charles Yudoes meta better than anyone.
His newest work of fiction follows in his highly creative footsteps.
Credit: Tina Chiou; Scribd Originals
But, like, with humor.
(This is aCharles Yu pieceafter all).
JANE
ON MONDAYS, her mom always calls her from the moon.
Get to work okay?
Sorry to say this.
Thats nice, Jane.
Thats a nice reaction to your mother caring about you.
Like, really dead.
Burned up on reentry to Earth.
Someday youre going to feel bad about this conversation.
I already feel pretty bad about it.
When you have a kid of your own.
You realize Id have to actually meet a guy in order for that to happen?
Its a long way from our little satellite.
All I do is worry about you, and I have to deal with this?
Very convincing, Jane says.
Then its quiet on the line.
Jane listens to the crackle of white noisecosmic background radiationa faint reminder of the big bang.
A single event 13.7 billion years ago, working itself out.
From Monday to Friday, Jane lives here.
Two hundred forty thousand miles from her mom.
Its a weird distance.
The size of the local situation.
Radius of their private little system.
Today marks the middle of the off-season.
Three months since the last of the tourists packed up and shuffled off to various subdivisions on Europa.
Itll be another couple months before the cycle begins again, early birds trickling in.
the looping promo video says.
Jane wishes she could turn it off, but the remotes broken.
She stretches, sips coffee, watches it for the ten thousandth time.
Gift Shop
COME TO EARTH!
Yes, that Earth.
A lot of people think were closed during construction, but were not.
The gift shop is still open for business.
Admittedly, its a little confusing.
First we were Earth: The Planet.
Then life formed, and that was a great and good time.
And then, for a little while, we were Earth: A Bunch of Civilizations!
A lucky few escaped and went out in search of new worlds to colonize.
Or so were told.
The record-keeping that far back gets pretty iffy.
Then, for what seemed like an eternity, we were Earth: Not Much Going On Here Anymore.
And that lasted for a pretty long time.
Which was then followed by a really long time.
Parents brought their kids, teachers took their students on field trips.
Retirees arrived by the busload.
They wanted to see where their ancestors had come from.
But there was nothing here.
Kids and seniors, parents and teachers, every one of them came with hope.
And they all went away deflated.
We pooled our resources and assembled what we could find.
One of us had a recording of Maria Callas singing the Violetta aria in La Traviata.
We all thought it sounded very pretty, so we had that playing over the PA system.
There was also a television showing episodes ofThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
People, long gone, laughing and clapping together.
And the main attraction of the museum was a painting we had by some guy of some flowers.
And who could blame them?
After the collapse of civilization, education has just never been the same.
Those with money, anyway.
The ones who could afford to having long ago scattered to far-flung regions of the cosmos.
Eventually, one of us realized that the most popular part of the museum was the escalator ride.
Which is how we became Earth: The Gift Shop.
Which was all anyone ever wanted anyway.
To get a souvenir to take home.
We do have some great souvenirs.
Which brings us back to our original point.
What was our original point?
Oh yeah: Earth: The Gift Shop is still here.
Not just here, but doing great!
Okay, maybe not great, but okay.
We would be better if you came by and shopped here.
Earth: The Gift Shop: The Brochure.
So again we say: Come to Earth!
We get hundreds of visitors a year, from near and far.
Some of you come by accident.
No shame in that!
We still have beer!
Of course, we prefer if you come here intentionally.
Many of you do.
Maybe you are coming because you just want to look, or to say you were here.
Maybe you are coming to have a story to tell when you get back.
Maybe you just want to be able to say: I went home.
Even if all I did was shop there.
Copyright 2021 Charles Yu.
