My job is to report the sun’s mood every evening.
Nine o’clock, ten minutes, a forgotten corner of a satellite channel. That’s where Space Weather Today lives, and where I deliver solar flare forecasts. Ratings are catastrophic. On the rare days they tick up, it’s always the same story — a big flare made the news, and curious viewers stopped by the next night.
But most nights, nothing happens at all.
“The sun was calm again today. Probability of a major flare tomorrow remains low.”
I read that line, and my ten minutes are done.
“Are you seriously planning to keep doing this?”
Satonaka — new hire, assigned in April — said it after rehearsal, in the greenroom. She’s still got that fresh edge in her voice, the kind that hasn’t been worn down yet.
“I mean, ratings are like 0.3. Who’s even watching?”
“People watch.”
“Okay, but — you literally just say ‘calm’ every night. An AI could do this. I’m not trying to be harsh, but I’ve already started job hunting. That thing will outlast both of us.”
Blunt. I appreciated it, sort of. She’ll be gone in three months. The one before her left too. And the one before that. It’s a thankless, invisible job.
The broadcast that night was the same — an unremarkable sun. I read the forecast against a backdrop of soft coronal imagery, the sun wearing its usual placid face.
“The sun was calm again today.”
When I got home, my mother was waiting in the living room with the lights turned halfway down. Her eyes have been sensitive lately.
“Good work. Calm again today, huh.”
“Yeah. Nothing happened.”
“That’s the best kind.”
She said it simply, and went to put the kettle on.
My mother spent her working life at a power company, managing transmission grids. Quiet work. Heavy work. In March 1989, a massive solar flare shook Earth’s magnetosphere and knocked out power across Quebec, Canada. She was young then, barely into the job — and that night, no one in her office went home. The senior staff were tense in a way she’d never seen before, bracing for whatever might come through the lines. She still remembers their faces.
For more than thirty years after that, she tracked the sun’s temperament more closely than almost anyone.
She’s been retired for a few years now. Her eyes aren’t great. She goes out less. But at nine o’clock each night, she turns on the TV and watches my segment.
“The sun was calm again today.”
She hears me say it, gives a small nod, and makes herself a cup of tea. That’s how her day ends.
Half of why I took this job was for her. The other half — I’m still not entirely sure.
Satonaka will probably quit. Whoever comes next will probably quit too. But the show will keep running for a while. A 0.3 rating still means someone out there, every night after broadcast, is putting the kettle on.
I fold the script and walk to the living room.
“Good work tonight,” my mother says.
“Nothing happened again,” I say.
I’ve only recently started to understand that that’s enough.