Murmuration

by TJ Klune

  He looks down at his wrist.

  It’s blank, of course. He’s never had a tattoo in his life.

  But boy does it itch like crazy.

  “It was just a dream,” he says.

  His voice is rough and cracked.

  It’s a Tuesday, September 14, 1954, in the small town of Amorea. The birds are chirping, the sun is rising, and it looks like it’s going to be a fine day.

  “Fo sho,” he says, though he doesn’t know why.

  His alarm goes off.

  “ROUGH NIGHT?” Sean asks when Mike enters the diner, a look of worry on his face.

  “Something like that,” he mutters. He knows he sounds gruff, so he tries to soften the blow by smiling. He doesn’t know how well he does.

  Sean’s frowning at him. “Maybe you should go to Doc after all.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. “How’s your head?” He’s deflecting, and he thinks they both know that.

  “Better,” Sean says. “You have magic fingers, I guess.”

  Happy chokes on his coffee.

  “I’m eating here,” Calvin says.

  “Ah, young love,” Donald says, pouring an obscene amount of catsup on his hash browns. “It’s revolting.”

  “Eat your breakfast, you old farts,” Sean admonishes.

  Mike’s still stuck on the word love. Because even though he knows how he feels, it’s the first time anyone has said it out loud, and it’s overwhelming how loud it sounds in his ears. He’s not sure what to do with it, because Sean is tugging on his hand, leading him toward his booth, and the other diners are smiling at both of them, like they’re in on the secret too. He nods in greeting as they chirp their good mornings to him, but he’s focused on the heat of Sean’s grip, the dryness of his skin, the way their fingers slot together.

  He should be worrying about other things. The weirdness and the ghosts and the aliens and the smartphones and the Björns. The numbers he thinks are dates from decades ago. The mountains. God, he should be thinking about the mountains.

  But those don’t seem as important right now. Not as important as Sean.

  He thinks, I love you. I really, really do. You’re the only thing I have that makes sense to me.

  Sean glances back at him and smiles. “You say something, big guy?”

  Yes. Yes. Yes. “No.”

  “Okay. You sit yourself down. I’ll bring you some coffee. You want juice this morning?”

  I just want you. “No. Coffee’s fine.”

  Sean’s hand trails up his arm and onto his shoulder and Mike thinks about flying through glass. It’s slipping, in fact it’s mostly gone, but there’s still the sensory experience of it. The glass shattering behind him, the weight of a person on his chest. He doesn’t remember who it was or what was happening, but he knows they were there.

  Sean’s back with a mug and a pot of black coffee. He pours it, steam wafting up. It smells good. It smells real. It grounds Mike because this is what he knows. This is his life. It’s not that dream, it’s not the—

  “Maybe you should keep the shop closed today,” Sean says, breaking Mike out of his thoughts.

  “Why?”

  “So you can get some rest. You look like you need it.”

  “That your way of saying I don’t look good?”

  Sean rolls his eyes as he sits across from Mike in the booth. “No. That’s my way of saying I don’t want you to get sick. And that I feel bad.”

  “For what?”

  Sean runs his fingers over the tabletop. “Keeping you up last night. You could have been at home.”

  “Now see here,” Mike says. “I was there because I wanted to be. You couldn’t have made me leave if you tried.”

  “Really.”

  “I gotta take care of you,” Mike says, and he thinks it might be the most honest thing he’s ever said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you need it.”

  “Mike.”

  “Because I want to.”

  Sean arches an eyebrow. “So then I can do the same for you. We take care of each other. That’s how this thing works.”

  “This thing.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Mike’s mouth is a little dry. “You and me.”

  “Yes, Mike. You and me.”

  “Because we’re a thing.”

  Sean squints at him. “Did I break you?”

  “A little,” Mike admits. “I had… hope.”

  Sean’s amused now, amused by Mike, like he often is. “And what did you hope for, big guy?”

  He hesitates, because this feels important. He wants to get it right. Mike’s always had a bit of a problem with his words, sometimes saying one thing but meaning another. He wants there to be no misinterpretation about what he wants. He says, “I hoped to have you. All of you.”

  Sean’s eyes widen a little bit. “All of me.” He sounds breathless.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “And would I have all of you?”

  Mike wants to tell him that he’s had all of him, at least all the parts that mattered, since that very first day Mike came into the diner. But he thinks that might be too much for the both of them right now, so he just says, “Yeah,” again.

  “You’re asking me to go steady?” Sean asks, teasing. But he’s grinning now, full-on grinning, the widest smile Mike’s ever seen on his face. It’s like the just-for-Mike smile, only it’s been stretched into something more.

  Mike snorts at that. Going steady, like they’re teenagers. Though, he doesn’t think he’d mind maybe necking in the back of a dark movie theater. “I guess I am,” he says somewhat ruefully.

  Sean’s up and out of the booth before Mike can so much as blink. “You need to stand up.”

  Now he blinks. “Um, sorry?”

  “Stand up right now, Mike Frazier.”

  He does. Sean’s demanding it, after all. They’re close together, knees knocking, Sean looking up at him with those big eyes of his. The sound around them has died a little, and he knows they’re being watched, but he can’t find it in himself to care in the slightest.

  “I’m gonna kiss you,” Sean says. “Right now. Unless you have any objections. And if you do, they better be strong ones.”

  “No,” Mike says hastily. “No objections. Not a single objec—”

  There are hands cupping his face, pressing against his beard and cheeks, and then lips are on his. They’re warm and wet, and it’s more than they’ve ever done before. It’s also in front of a crowd of about fifteen people, but Mike doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because he’s wrapping his arms around Sean and holding him close. It’s like a kiss at the end of a romantic picture, with the music swelling and the camera pulling back. He’s fit to burst, and the little sound Sean makes when Mike’s teeth graze his bottom lip isn’t helping. That sound is just for Mike, and he relishes it.

  They’re going to cross a line of decency if they keep going, and Mike’s only a man—a strong one, but a man nonetheless. He can’t keep this up without embarrassing the both of them, though he has half a mind to not give a shit. He breaks the kiss first and Sean’s still got a hold on his face. He’s standing on his tiptoes in order to press his forehead to Mike’s, and it’s so charming that Mike kisses him again, light and quick, on the corner of his mouth. He feels Sean’s smile quirk in that kiss, and it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever seen.

  There’s hooting and hollering coming from the guys at the lunch counter, and the womenfolk are chattering excitedly, but Mike’s all about Sean.

  “You’re mine,” he says, and he can’t keep the awe out of his voice. He’s found this thing, this wonderful thing, and doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve it.

  “Sure, big guy,” Sean says. “And you’re mine.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  HE IS awfully tired, and he thinks that maybe he can take the morning off. Maybe take a nap, just like Sean said he should. He’ll probably have only his usu
al morning browsers, and the book club is already done for the week. (They decided to reread Lord of the Flies to really get the subtext behind Golding’s words—it was something rarely done, extending a book into two meetings, but he knew Mrs. Richardson’s word was law and therefore it would be so.) He rarely lets himself have a day off like this, and he’s worked hard. He deserves it. And he really could use some rest.

  He’s thinking about the island and the prison of modern-day society as he leaves a note on the door of Bookworm (BACK THIS AFTERNOON. THANKS! MIKE). He liked the book, more than he thought he would, but he’s not quite sure the book club got to the heart of it. He thinks Golding was trying to say that the boys had traded one prison for another, one rife with rigidity and the other anarchism.

  He laughs at himself for such a pretentious interpretation. Mike’s smart, he knows this about himself, but he’s not necessarily deep. He likes books and knows sometimes, what’s on the page is nothing more than what’s on the page. For all he knows, Golding wanted to write about a bunch of little bastards who got lost and tried to kill each other. That’s it. Nothing more. There’s no hidden meaning. There’s nothing to parse out.

  And it’s funny, really. Because he did mean to go home and try and get some sleep. He did have a plan in mind to doze for a few hours and come back to the shop by one.

  But he’s thinking, okay? He’s thinking about prisons now, and about mountains, how he wants to go to them mountains, fo sho. He’s got them in his head like an earworm he can’t shake, and he’s thinking smartphone and Björn, and how that glass sounded when it’d crashed behind him, someone falling on his chest (who that someone was, though, he doesn’t know; it was only a dream, after all, and most times, dreams are vague). He’s thinking in numbers, you bet your fur, and those numbers are dates like 4 and a 22 and a 15. Like 5 and 20 and 82.

  April 22, 1915. May 20, 1882.

  He doesn’t know what those dates are. He wasn’t even born then. He wasn’t even a thought then.

  (And as an undercurrent, barely there, he thinks, When was I born, if I wasn’t born then? It’s negligible, that thought, and is lost in the murmuration.)

  And that has to be the explanation—the only explanation—as to why his feet don’t carry him home. Why he doesn’t find himself opening his door, Martin mrowing at him, saying, Feed me, human, I haven’t eaten since twenty minutes ago and I fear I may starve. It’s gotta be why he’s standing near the end of Main Street, which stretches on as far as the eye can see. Behind him are the shops and the diner and the businesses and the houses and all the people he knows, all one hundred twenty-five of them.

  In front of him is the road that leads out of Amorea, toward the mountains.

  It strikes him then.

  The road that leads out of Amorea.

  He doesn’t know why he’s never thought about it before.

  (You have, that little voice whispers. You have thought about it before, why the hell can’t you see that? Why the hell can’t you remember? You have thought about this before. You’ve already tried—)

  He sways on his feet almost drunkenly when he’s hit by a wave of déjà vu. It prickles along his skin and he can hear a woman saying, It’s like a goose walked over your grave, bucko.

  Bucko. He knows that nickname.

  Doesn’t he?

  Mike Frazier takes a step out of Amorea.

  It’s easier than he thought it would be.

  It’s no Code Orange, he thinks. That’s just another earworm, though. Like the love shack. And the mountains.

  What if someone jostles that balance?

  Why would they?

  Just to see what would happen.

  I don’t know anyone in Amorea that would do such a thing.

  Mike does. Mike knows someone.

  Should really get to bed, he thinks.

  Instead, he takes another step. And another. And another, until he’s walking right down that road. And he’s feeling fine, he’s breathing fine. The mountains are there, those perfect-looking mountains with their snowcapped peaks, and he’s thinking, I could go to them mountains right now if I wanted to, that’s fo sho.

  He wishes Nadine the African Queen were with him.

  He frowns.

  No, that isn’t right. He doesn’t know any Nadine, much less a queen.

  He wishes Sean were with him. Maybe he and Sean can come here this evening. It would be something special, wouldn’t it? Just the two of them, going for a stroll outside of Amorea.

  He glances behind him. The town is getting smaller. He doesn’t know how he’s walked so far in such a short amount of time.

  The mountains are the same size, and he wonders just how far away they are. What they’re called. What’s on the other side. Who is on the other side.

  The air is getting a little heavier. Like he’s rising in elevation, but the road is flat. He’s not walking up any hill. It’s thicker here, and he’s sweating a little. It trickles down the back of his neck to the collar of his shirt, and he’s thinking he should turn around. That he should walk back the way he came. Forget about all of this. Make an appointment with Doc. Get checked up. Get checked out. Get diagnosed and medicated and live happily ever after in the town where everyone knows who he is and he knows all of them. And with Sean. Yes. He’d like to live happily ever after with Sean.

  And yes, he’s just strolling down that road, isn’t he? The sun is bright, and there are these fat, white clouds above in the bright blue sky, and it’s like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Like he’s taken a midday stroll without rhyme or reason, just because he can.

  He can’t take as deep of a breath as he could just moments ago, like everything is thicker. This worries him, but not enough to stop, because now that he’s here, he’s determined. He’s absolutely determined to get as far as he can just to prove that he can.

  There’s a copse of trees ahead up on the left, and he sets that as his next target: just get there, get past it, pick another point, get there, get past it.

  And it’s funny, really. What happens next. He’s looking at that copse of trees and he’s making his way toward it. He’s sweating and taking in these great gasping breaths and he’ll swear until his dying day that he hears the clop of horse hooves. He thinks, There are no horses in Amorea. And, Why are there no horses in Amorea? And, There’s no children or cars or—

  And then it happens.

  One second he’s looking at that copse of trees, getting to them mountains fo sho, and then he blinks, he blinks, and Amorea is in front of him. He was walking east, leaving Amorea behind him.

  And now Amorea is in front of him.

  The west end.

  Like he’d just gone in one big circle.

  “It’s not possible,” he says, and doesn’t even register how high-pitched his voice is. “It’s not—”

  But there it is. Amorea in front of him. The mountains on the other side.

  He looks behind him.

  There’s a hill. Rises up and away.

  He says, “Okay, Mike. Okay. Just think.”

  There are three logical answers.

  One, he’s dreaming.

  Two, he’s sick, much sicker than he thought.

  Three, he got drunk somehow and is stumbling around Amorea.

  And maybe there’s another one.

  Four, aliens.

  Okay, so that last might not be the most rational. This isn’t fiction. This is real life. Amorea isn’t an island. He knows this. They’re not trapped here, and there’s a balance. They work. They won’t descend into chaos. Everyone is assigned their part. He’s overthinking this. He really is.

  Occam’s razor, and he thinks, I just wanted to get to them mountains, fo sho.

  Since it can’t be aliens, it has to be one of the other three.

  He’s not drunk. He’d know if he were drunk. He’s been drunk before, not a whole lot, but enough to know how fluid everything becomes, how slow and sweet. It was a few poker nights, with one
too many Falstaffs. Or that night he and Sean sat in the backyard on the patio and went through a bottle of white wine, and they were laughing, weren’t they? This was more toward the beginning, more when he was unsure of Sean, unsure of what was happening between the two of them. He needed the courage from the wine, and by the time the bottle was empty, he said something to make Sean laugh and he thought to himself, That’s a nice sound, that sure is a nice sound.

  He’s not dreaming.

  Well.

  He’s pretty sure he’s not dreaming.

  He can’t remember ever having a dream this vivid before.

  (Granted, he doesn’t dream much to begin with, and lately the dreams he has been having are all mired in a strange haze, like being seen through a grainy filter, and yeah, it’s the specifics that get to him, those little details that seem like they’re making it harder and harder to wake up.)

  (They’re filled with sounds of breaking glass and men standing at the edge of his bed and voices in his house saying things like Code Orange and It’s like you’re not even trying, Julienne, Jesus fucking Christ, don’t you see what’s happening here? though he can’t remember when he had them, just that he did.)

  So he has to be sick.

  That’s why it’s a razor. Because it cuts straight to the truth.

  There’s that little voice in his head that says, Really? That’s what you’re going with? Climb back up that hill behind you and see. Goddamn you, Mike. Goddamn you, Greg, just climb back up that hill and see—

  That’s when he knows he’s sick.

  Because he doesn’t know anyone named Greg.

  And part of him wants to. Part of him wants to listen to that voice and climb back up that hill.

  He doesn’t, though.

  No, he does the only thing he can.

  He starts walking back into Amorea.

  It’s home, after all.

  XIV

  FOR THE third time since Mike Frazier came to Amorea on a beautiful summer day in 1951, Bookworm is closed on a weekday morning. A Wednesday, to be exact.

  Mike feels guilty about this, of course, especially since this is the second day in a row, but it can’t be helped. Because this Wednesday morning, Mike is sitting in the cozy waiting room belonging to Howard Dunston, a man with a large waist and an even larger laugh who goes by the nickname Doc. He’s the doctor for Amorea, seeing to the needs of its people. He’s always accessible and loves to take care of the townsfolk, even if it’s usually for only minor things. In fact, Sean’s migraines are usually as bad as it gets.