Postaday for January 22nd: Fireside Chat. What person whom you don’t know very well in real life — it could be a blogger whose writing you enjoy, a friend you just recently made, etc. — would you like to have over for a long chat in which they tell you their life story?
Laika is dressed in a cheap white dress shirt, no tie, a black jacket, black slacks that have flares and have seen better days. Her shoes are scuffed, and her socks are too light for this outfit. A cigarette dangles from one hand, idly, the ash too long, precarious. She sits in a beaten up canvas director’s chair, slouched into it. On her head a fedora with a white band— a generous viewer would say the band matcher her socks. She gazes at me, a half-smirk on her face.
I’m in the other director’s chair, in my tweed and loafers. I’m not stylish; I’m unassuming. My hair’s slicked back, in the style, and my horn-rimmed glasses are frosted so as to not catch the overhead lights. Mark, our camera man, gives me a silent count down- three, two, one go.
“Hello and welcome. With me in the studio today, we have Laika. Hello Laika, it’s good to have you here.”
She ashes, takes a drag, remains slouched. Her voice is gravelly, low, but undeniably feminine. “Thanks man, likewise, likewise.”
“Let’s get right into it, Laika. How old are you.”
She takes a deep breath. “I’m three, going on four. Of course, I was born back in, like 1989, sooo…”
“Right. If you had been born in 89, you’d be, what,” I do some math in my head. “99, 2009, 2019, you’d be-”
“Yep, 26, how about that.”
“But you weren’t actually. Born I mean.”
She takes another drag, smirk, leans forward to put out her cigarette. “No, man, I guess I wasn’t. I’m a, what do you call it. A fantasy.”
“That’s right. You’re the daughter I would have had if I’d been, ah, a little less cautious as a teenager.”
“Yeah man. You know, you got, like, classmates who are grandparents now?”
“Ha! Think of that!”
“Think of that, man.” She pats her pockets for her cigarettes.
“Indeed. So you’re three, going on four. Why that age?”
“You mean, why not 26?” She asks, and peers at me with one eye closed as she lights the cigarette and inhales.
“Yes.”
She shrugs and eases back once more. “You were, what, 17 when you would have had me? Life’s weird, man. But you know what, things work out. Maybe some of the details would be the same, but more or less, the you you are now is the same you you woulda been.”
“Except for those three years.”
“Except for those three years, man. So here I am. Talking to you. Your daughter Laika.”
“Why Laika, do you think? Isn’t that a Russian name?”
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah, it was the name of that dog they sent up into space, the Russians. Sad story, really. She was a stray, and they picked her up, you know, and fed her and trained her and all that. Treated her okay, I guess. Had to get her used to smaller and smaller boxes, since they were going to, you know, launch her into space and stuff. But she was a good little thing, took to the training. Smart. One of the scientists, though, I don’t know. Took her home to play with his kids, just the once. Said he wanted to do something nice for her. I guess that’s sweet.”
“But she died up there, ran out of oxygen, right?”
“No, no,” she shifts around in her chair, switches the cigarette to her other hand. “That’s what they said, but actually there was a problem during the launch, and her, uh, fan broke. She got overheated, died a few hours into it.”
“That’s,” I take off my glasses for effect, rub my eye. “That’s very sad.”
She takes a drag. “Yeah, pretty sad.”
“But, anyway. You probably weren’t named after the first animal in space.”
“Nah, probably not.”
“Another question, Laika— you’re only three years old. Why am I talking to what appears to be a grown-up?”
At this she chuckles. Shows her teeth. She’s got one snaggle-tooth, like the father she would have had if she’d ever been born. “You wanted my life story, man, short as it was. But kids can’t talk, not at that age.”
“And neither can dogs.”
“Nope, neither can dogs.”
I turn to the camera. “Well folks, I want to thank you for sitting down with us today.” I turn to the daughter I never had, never, truthfully, ever came close to having. “And thank you, Laika.”
“My pleasure.”
“Good night.” Mark counts me down, the fade as the credits come up, until I’m not on the screen anymore.
I go find a drink somewhere.