Mr Hyun lived down the hall, he was elderly and had arthritis so I’d cook him meals (he offered to pay, but given that I’d been cajoled into spying on him it was the least I could do). Everyone knew about our friendship, and by that I mean: the Kremlin. I’d be snorting lines at Destiny nightclub with friends, trying to forget my divorce, and an unshaved Russian would slam me up against the bathroom stall, and choke me. “Tell me the secret of anti-gravity.”
“I’m working…on it,” I’d croak.
These guys always looked a bit bored and disinterested, they were merely doing a job, keeping me focused on the task I’d been hired for; they’d strangle me to the point of blackout and then let me crumple on the floor.
I didn’t, yet, have the secret to anti-gravity, but what I could’ve told them about it (which they wouldn’t have appreciated) was that floating in My Hyun’s anti-gravity living-room was like an exorcism, where the heavy part of you disappears, the part that fears falling. You become light. My divorce settlement had given my ex-wife custody of Liesel, I was given soul-crushingly limited visitation rights. I knew the value of lightness.
For ninety years, Mr Hyun had lived in obscurity while submitting, admittedly complex, mathematics papers to journals; his proof of the twin prime conjecture, a five-line solution to Fermat’s theory, a refutation of the Riemann’s hypothesis. He’d been rejected. Prickly academics dismissed his results. Told him he was not worth spending time on. That shit really stuck in Mr Hyun’s craw. So, but then he built an honest-to-God anti-gravity living-room and scientists everywhere were like: Shit, he’s a genius. And we’re talking NASA, the CIA, NATO, the axis of evil and venture capital alike.
But Mr Hyun was sick of scientists. He was ninety, and he’d got to a “who gives a shit” point. He’d become, I’d say, embittered, or spiteful, he was a nice guy though, but he just fuckin hated scientists. So, when NASA would call up offering millions to study with him, or to rent his lounge-room for an hour, Mr Hyun would tell me, “You tell NASA, fuck NASA.”
I’m maybe the only person ever to tell NASA, multiple times, to go have sex with themselves.
Mr Hyun could’ve used the cash. He lived on beans. I sometimes bought him steak, but he mostly didn’t eat them (he did have dentures though). I told him: “Why not put an ad in the paper, Mr Hyun? Host anti-grav kid’s birthday parties? You’d make a motza.” His lounge room would be the most popular kid’s party venue in the city.
“Listen, Mr Hyun,” I said. “Okay, ulterior motive. It’s Liesel’s birthday, and if she has her party in your anti-grav living room, well, that’s something she’ll remember.”
My Hyun looked at me.
On the wall behind him was a framed haiku by Kobayashi Issa that he sometimes mumbled:
This dewdrop world—
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet . . . and yet . . .
It seemed to capture something about Mr Hyun, his austerity? I don’t know. His grimness? There was something in him that hinted at a great love, long past.
“Liesel,’ he said, “your child?”
“She’s turning five,” I said. “We miss each other.”
My Hyun said okay to the party, but he said no adults. He didn’t want anyone spying for the Russians. So, just me and him and twenty five-year-olds.
I padded the living-room with bubble wrap and IKEA cushions, it took me seven hours to get out of IKEA but anyway, I didn’t mention to Mr Hyun how often five-year-olds at birthday parties throw-up (vomit doesn’t puddle in ant-grav, it hangs, and drifts).
The kids arrived and waited patiently in the living-room while I turned the oven on, and they began squealing when gravity fell away. Most of them floated straight upwards and were buffeted against the ceiling. Mr Hyun and I observed. They were so excited and playful, and Liesel, of course, was glorious in her joy.
During pass-the-parcel, My Hyun said, “I’m going to tell you Billy.”
“What?” I said.
“The secret of the anti-gravity waveform,” he said.
“You’re going to tell me…” I trailed off. I looked at him and realised that he knew about the Russians, knew I’d sold him out, knew, and yet… and yet, he—
‘All this,’ Mr Hyun motioned to the copper tubes running over the walls, “to create the waveform. Twenty-years of experimentation.” He eyed me. “And what for? I’ve produced nothing more than another fleeting glimpse into a reality we can never comprehend.”
Some kid unwrapped a squishmallow to oohhs and ahhhs.
“After the party,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”
“Okay,” I said, as if it was nothing, as if my life didn’t depend on it, as if I hadn’t taken a few measly grand from the Russians to procure this very thing, and as if the Russians hadn’t started sending me fingers in the mail, random fingers, not necessarily even Russian ones, and as if the only thing I had to tell the Russians at this point was to set the oven to one-hundred and eighty and furniture would start floating, and as if I wasn’t just an ephemeral waste of what would one day become nothingness.
Liesel unwrapped the last present (as I intended). A thousand-dollar iphone bought with Russian money.
“You’re a good man, Billy,” said Mr Hyun.
Mr Hyun smiled, and in that moment it felt okay, before we fell back to earth and were left in no doubt it was untrue and despicable.
Liesel came floating towards me, fragile like her body was made of glass and her soul of sunshine. Laughing like I was the best dad in the world. Like our problems were solvable, and the weight on our chests was movable, and that the life we lived in this moment was the only one that mattered.
__________
Glenn Orgias is a writer from Sydney. His debut crime novel, Teeth Kicker, is coming out in July 2026.