Transit of Venus
The next time Venus transits is over one hundred years away. Today, the planet is visible, a solid black disk travelling across the blinding sun. I don’t recommend taking a look.
I answer the phone.
“Thank you for calling Agident, Rosalie speaking, how may I help you?”
The words run together. I recite the sentence in a single breath, delivered with a bright chirp. The woman who replies wants to know if her insurance plan covers wisdom teeth extraction.
“Please hold while I look into that for you.”
I check her rates on the company’s publicly accessible webpage. The caller is disappointed when I tell her she is only covered for 75% of the cost.
I wonder where this woman was eight years ago, the last time the rare astronomical phenomenon occurred. Due to the orbital patterns of Earth and Venus, the sulfuric planet positions itself between our world and the Sun at irregular intervals. Every one hundred years or so, the transition occurs twice, eight years apart. The last time Venus transit, I was eleven years old. My neighbour brought a telescope to the front yard, fitted with a solar funnel. The conical contraption was fixed to the focused end of the mirror, producing an image of the sun on a paper screen attached to the concave end of the funnel. A tiny black dot slowly drifted across the bright yellow disk over the course of the day.
Only eight years later, a blink in astronomical terms, I barely recognize that eleven-year-old. Now, I have a job. For up to eight hours a day, I speak to dental insurance holders across the country. They’re less friendly than the kids on the playground were eight years ago. If there are little men on Venus, watching as they float past, I wonder if they notice the difference.
Less than ten seconds after I hang up, the phone rings again. Ed sits down at the empty station next to me, just as I go on hold.
“Hi Edwin. Before you connect, can I ask you a quick question?”
He looks at me skeptically, one eyebrow raised. “I guess so. As long as it’s not a hard one.”
He’s a supervisor. Part of his job is to help with complicated questions and difficult customers. He shrugs off his brown leather jacket, powers on his computer, then focuses his eyes on me, inquisitively.
I explain the customer situation. He runs a hand through his cropped hair and looks up a few things on his computer. “It depends on the type of plan,” he says, giving me the details.
“That makes sense. Thank you, Ed!” He puts on his headset. “Oh, and one more thing: is orthodontics covered?”
He looks at me with a conspiratorial smile. “Ortho’s never covered. You know that.”
“Never, ever?” I ask innocently. “I wasn’t sure.”
Without replying, he turns back to his screen and takes a call.
I answer the phone. The incoming calls are a constant barrage. The ringing rattles the walls of the downtown office suite, and the faithful call center agents valiantly battle off the assault with a magazine full of dental rates, claim deadlines, and opt-out conditions. Edwin goes for lunch and another employee takes his place on the front lines.
“Thank you for calling Agident, Rosalie speaking, how may I help you?”
The only thing I can hear on the other end of the line is static.
“Hello? You’ve reached Agident. Rosalie speaking.”
More static. It doesn’t sound like a normal dropped call. It reminds me of an unidentified radio frequency in a science fiction movie. “Hello?”
I’m about to end the call when there’s a response. The words are clear, but sound as if they come from very far away.
“Calling any intelligent lifeforms. I am an inhabitant of the planet Venus. Please respond.”
I freeze. “Thank you for calling Agident. I’m having trouble understanding you. Could you please repeat that?”
“This is a general communication. I am attempting contact on behalf of the planet Venus.”
“I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number. Goodbye.” We are never supposed to hang up on callers, but if my manager heard that, I think she would understand.
“Wait!” The voice is suddenly excited. “Can you hear me? I can’t believe it.”
“We don’t respond to prank calls, sir. I’m going to have to let you go.” Politeness is of utmost importance at Agident.
“Please do not go. This is not a prank. I am attempting contact from an alien vessel. It has crashed—” A sudden burst of static cuts off his last words. Behind me, the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows thins, as a cloud drifts past the slightly eclipsed sun.
“Crashed? If you are in an emergency situation, please disconnect and dial 911.”
“No emergency,” he says, the odd, slightly robotic voice crackling through my earpiece.
“I am representing the planet Venus.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” I should hang up, but I don’t. Could something this fantastic really be happening? I look around me. Computer stations, call center agents speaking into headsets, the sound of typing and ringing phones. Everything seems normal.
“I have managed to send an outgoing transmission using this unknown craft. Where are you located?”
“Montreal, Canada.”
“What planet?”
I gaff. “Earth… How can anyone survive on Venus with 400 degree temperatures?” I say, humouring him. But beneath the irony, part of me is genuinely curious.
“How can you survive on Earth? The surface is much too cold to support life, and the atmosphere is poisonous.” The voice starts to break up again. “How many … your species…”
“Hello?” The call drops.
A fraction of a second later, the next call comes in.
“I need to speak to someone about a five-dollar overcharge— this is unacceptable.”
…
On my coffee break, I read an article about Aphrodite, the latest probe to investigate possible life on Venus. After discovering traces of unnatural amounts of phosphene in its atmosphere, scientific and cultural interest in the second planet from the sun eclipsed the obsession with our other neighbour, Mars. Venus has a swirling mass of sulfurous clouds above its solid core, so the probe was equipped with the latest in heat shielding technology. The clouds of Venus also have the potential to obscure radio communications directed at earth— which is what NASA’s scientists expect happened. They lost contact with the probe.
In the months after the discovery of life-affirming chemical markers on the yellow planet, endless speculation about the nature of life on Venus, with its temperature of over 400 degrees Celsius and carbon dioxide atmosphere, gripped the zeitgeist. It intensified with the launch of the Aphrodite probe. Most scientists speculate that any life on Venus is most likely amoebic or bacterial, present in large enough quantities to produce the markers detected from Earth. But less pragmatic thinkers imagine a community of large-bodied animals, possibly floating around in the upper atmosphere of the planet, where the conditions are more temperate. They evoke Carl Sagan’s Floaters and Sinkers, an entire ecosystem, or even society, hidden in the swirling acid clouds.
Julie taps me on the shoulder, and I look up from my phone. “Are you coming to the 5 à 7 tonight? We’re celebrating, it’s Dan’s last week.”
I ask her where it is. My shift ends at six, so I say I’ll meet them there. I wonder if Ed is going. It looks like he’s gone for the day.
Back at my workstation, I turn on the endless flood of calls. “Why do you play that music?” one caller asks.
“Excuse me?” I say, confused by her question.
“I was on hold for 30 minutes. That song is so annoying. You should get it changed!”
As I answer calls, the sun begins to lower in the sky, filtering through the pink and yellow reflective glass of the surrounding office buildings. The view from the top floor is hazy. Strung-out clouds drift across the blue windowpanes and disappear behind concrete slabs. Most of my coworkers have left. By this time, the customer service line is closed to local callers. A few employees remain to deal with the West coast.
I greet the next caller. The familiar grainy sound has returned.
“I was able to reconnect to your Earth-satellite after going out of range”
“Are you calling from the Aphrodite?”
“Aphrodite? I’m in an alien vessel. Did it come from Earth?”
“Yes, we lost contact with it months ago,” I explain.
“Are you one of the scientists who launched this vessel? Why have you sent it?”
“No… I just work in a call center.” I hesitate. There are so many things I want to know. So many questions I want to ask. It feels like a waste of our potentially limited time to reply to his, to give the answer that to me seems so obvious it doesn’t need to be spoken aloud. “We want to know if we’re alone.”
The voice tries to reply, but starts to cut out again.
“You need to try contacting the people who made the probe. They’re called NASA,” I tell him, hurriedly. “I don’t think I can transfer you.”
“I will… attempt…” More static, then breaking through: “Thank you for your help Earthling.”
“My pleasure.”
…
I step outside into the cool, bustling evening, re-adjusting my skirt, which is crumpled from sitting in a chair all day. The aroma from the flower arrangements planted on the median breezes past me as I cross the street. The sidewalks on either side of the wide boulevard are busy with downtown professionals, in light suits, high-heeled sandals and bare summer legs. A powerful current in the crowd draws the commuters toward the entrance of the train station, which carries passengers from the commercial hub, beneath the mountain, and West, North or East to the outer suburban sprawl. Others head in the opposite direction, toward restaurants, terraces and bars. I join them, taking the few short steps from the lobby of the office building to the restaurant that Julie mentioned.
Inside, my eyes adjust to the dim lighting. The tables and bar are full of the well-dressed office workers who came from the surrounding high-rises. The space is infused with a relaxed modern beat that wafts over marble décor and fake plants.
I spot Julie’s platinum blonde hair at the back of the restaurant and follow it. My co-workers are at a table in the back-patio courtyard beneath abundant greenery and yellow fairy lights. Greeting them, I take an empty seat.
My mind is on the second planet from the sun. The sky is diffused, streaked green and pink beyond the rooftops in the courtyard. Venus is nearing the end of its transition today. I squint slightly, trying to get a glimpse of the solid yellow disk peaking between wispy streaks of cotton candy clouds. It’s too bright to look at. There’s no way to detect the shadow of that sulfurous planet.
“Hey Rose.” Ed is standing in front of me, wearing his brown leather jacket. He’s blocking the light of the sunset behind him. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad. Long day.”
“I know what you mean. These callers are exhausting. Where do they come up with the kinds of things they ask?”
I laugh. “They can be pretty out there,” Suddenly, I get the urge to ask him a different kind of question.
“Do you think we’re alone in the universe?”
He looks at me with an ironic smile, and without answering, takes the empty seat next to me. “It’s good to talk to someone in person for a change,” he says.
…
By the time I step out of the bar, the streets have cleared and the sky has darkened. It’s cooler now, and I pull my denim jacket closed, crossing my arms. The wind rustles my skirt, lifting it slightly and tickling the back of my legs. The flowers on the median seem bright in the dark and I take a deep breath, hoping to catch their fragrance. As I walk toward the train station, I look up toward the sky, the not-yet-visible stars, and whatever might be out there among them. I feel a tiny smile at the corner of my lips as I go home.
Samantha is a writer from Montreal. Her writing has appeared in Hobart. You can read more of her work on her blog, Selective (selectiveblog.com) and on Medium. IG: @selective.blog
