Murmuration

by TJ Klune

  Mike watches after him, only aware a minute or two later that he’s scratching his wrist.

  He stops and scowls. He’s only making things worse. He’s happy here. He’s happy with what he has. He should really let this go.

  THE PROBLEM is that he can’t.

  Because he gets to the store and goes to the back and there’s a shipment of new books stacked in brown boxes that he doesn’t remember ordering and doesn’t remember getting delivered. He knows he has invoices, and he knows they’re filled out, and he knows they have his signature on the bottom, but truth is, he can’t remember doing any of it.

  He laughs. It’s a hollow sound.

  “This is another event,” he says to absolutely no one.

  AND THERE are so many of them, now that he thinks about them. And he thinks about them quite a lot. Some get through. Others get lost in the haze.

  Who delivers the food into Amorea? To the general store? To the butcher? To the diner?

  Where does the trash go when it’s picked up off the streets on Tuesdays?

  Why are there no chil##&*#? (Little people, he thinks. Born to big people.)

  (He used to be able to speak that word. He knows it.)

  Why is there no h&*&##? (Medical place, he thinks. Where the chil##$*# are born.)

  Why doesn’t anyone drive a #&*&&? (Four wheels, he thinks. Windows and doors.)

  Why does no one come to visit Amorea?

  Why does no one leave Amorea?

  But then he thinks, Why would anyone want to ever leave Amorea? Regardless of the state of his mind, he knows that this place is a little slice of heaven, that this town is the greatest place on earth—why would he ever want to leave?

  But what if they did?

  He wants to ask these questions to everyone he sees, but he stops himself, knowing he’s just going to make it worse. No one else seems to have these questions, and all he can hear is Doc saying, There are subsets to schizophrenia. Did you know that? It’s not all the same. There are types, Mike. There’s paranoid schizophrenia, which causes you to question things that you didn’t question before. Like the Commies are listening in on every move you make. That the people you love are actually spies against you. They’re irrational, these thoughts. Of course they are. But they can cause abnormal behavior because the schizophrenic will hold on to them like they’re real.

  So no, he’s not going to ask these questions.

  (Why? that little voice asks, that little voice buried underneath all the questions. Why won’t you ask? They are valid questions. Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to know what’s going on?)

  (He does.)

  (He doesn’t.)

  HE DOESN’T like to keep these things from Sean, but he has to. There’s nothing he can say to Sean that won’t sound crazy, and he can’t hurt him like that. He won’t. He thinks of distancing himself from Sean, but he doesn’t know if he can do that. Even if all the rest of the world is slowly crumbling around him, Sean’s there with him. He’s got to hold himself up so he doesn’t bring anything down onto the both of them.

  HE’S IN the diner. Sean’s at the lunch counter, filling orders. He must know Mike’s looking at him, because he glances over and winks. It’s a quick thing, a saucy thing, and more than one person sees it and whistles, slapping the tabletops.

  Mike blushes because that’s what he does when someone acknowledges them for what they are.

  Outwardly, everything is good. He’s smiling. He’s laughing. He looks better rested, right-o, daddio, because he’s making himself go to sleep earlier, he’s making an effort to not draw questions.

  Last night, right before he dropped off to sleep, he heard voices coming from the den. Martin, the fat thing that he is, didn’t even react.

  There were two voices this time. He could hear bits and pieces that seemed to filter in and out.

  “Meatbags… not a single thing… doing it for them… it fucking creeps….”

  “It’s weird… like… here, you know? I don’t like being in… long time….”

  “They… eyes. You know? It’s all in… eyes. What are they… do?”

  “Above… grade. Don’t ask, don’t tell… get shot.”

  It went on for a little while longer, but that was all Mike could make out. He thought about getting up, taking a look, but he didn’t want confirmation that he was hearing things, that there was nothing there. He thought it was another event. He just didn’t want to know it was another event.

  But it’s fine now, because he’s not hearing voices that don’t belong. He’s surrounded by people that he knows, and yeah, maybe he’s starting to not trust them a little bit, maybe he’s wondering why no one’s asking the questions he’s asking, but at least he knows them. He’s known them for years, and that can’t be a farce. It’s all in his head, or so Doc thinks (hopes?), and he’s keeping track just like he’s being asked. He’s doing what Doc asked, and it’s fine.

  (He’s not going to tell Doc about the questions he has, those little questions like What’s on the other side of the mountains? and Why can’t we leave, is this an island, are we an island?)

  But that’s neither here nor there right now. Like most mornings (and most evenings), right now is about Sean and him and nothing else. He doesn’t want any of what’s going on in his head to affect Sean, not like this. Not because of him. He needs to keep Sean safe. Even if it’s from himself.

  (And he’s angry about that, angrier than he’s been since he can even remember. It curdles his stomach and causes his head to pound, thinking that he could do anything to hurt Sean. But he’s getting angrier. At himself. At the situation. At the fact that he was good, he was so good until all this bullshit started happening. He’d rather be in the dark than see anything in a false light.)

  So he’s sitting here, a cool cat, everyone is happy around him, and they think he’s happy too, and he is, he is, at least a little bit. Because Sean’s laughing and he’s winked at Mike, and he can’t ask for much more than that.

  Except.

  Except something’s niggling at him. Just at the back of his brain. It itches, but it’s nothing compared to everything else.

  Except it’s getting worse when he sees Sean reading off orders on his notepad, those funny little phrases only known to diner folks (“I need a Heart Attack on a rack, Adam and Eve on a log, and make sure you give me a double order of shingles with a shimmy and a shake”). Walter’s just nodding along with Sean, the two of them going back years together.

  Except that’s not quite right, is it?

  Mike thinks, You weren’t always like this. You used to stand at someone else’s side and watch him do it. He was teaching you. He’d roll his eyes at you and tell you young people didn’t know shit about the art of grilling.

  Walter looks up and sees Mike staring at him. He gives a little wave.

  Mike waves back.

  He’s young, isn’t he? Really young to be doing what he’s doing, and doing it well. Mike thinks of getting up and walking right back to that kitchen and saying How do you know how to do this so well? and Who taught you to be this way?

  He’d get a shrug, he thinks. Maybe a bashful little smile. I guess it’s in my blood.

  And maybe it is. Or maybe it belonged to someone else.

  Crazy, Mike thinks. I’m going crazy, crazy, crazy.

  (And he sees Sean out of the corner of his eye and wonders, just for a moment, if Sean knows something is wrong too, something back in that lizard brain, something that says, Wait a minute, just wait a minute. This isn’t how things used to be. Of course, in Mike’s lizard brain, it’s saying, What if he knows, what if he knows, what if he knows like everyone else? But Mike’s not paranoid. He’s not. Something’s wrong, and maybe Doc is right, but he’s not paranoid about Sean, he can’t be paranoid about Sean.)

  He has a smile on his face. It’s a good one. One that everyone believes.

  He almost believes it too.

  His mind is a funny thing righ
t now. The connections it’s making. He’s thinking about Wüsthof Ikon Damascus, and he knows it’s expensive even if he doesn’t know exactly what it is. That leads to thoughts of a woman, anger twisting her features, and she’s saying, All I do is talk at you, never with you. You’re not here anymore. You’ve checked out. You don’t give a shit about me. You probably never even gave a shit about her. And that leads to breaking glass. Which leads to picture frames breaking as they fall off a wall. There’s an elbow to a nose and a white-hot rage that someone could hurt him like that, that someone would even—

  The pictures, though.

  There was something about the pictures.

  Wasn’t there?

  He looks to his left. There’s the one picture he loves most. The one of him and Sean at the end of the dock. The way Sean’s laughing—

  (It’s not anything.

  It’s always something.

  Not with him. With you, yes.)

  —and even now, and even with everything going on inside his head, it’s enough to make him feel lighter. Sweeter, like burnt sugar, and he has to stop himself from reaching out and tracing his fingers over the two of them, frozen on a diner wall in Amorea. That’s real, he knows. That’s real. Not the voices in the dark. Not the way that the road out of Amorea leads to the road into Amorea. Not the murmurations, though he knows those were real to him at one point.

  But the pictures.

  They cover the walls. It’s Walter’s hobby, it’s his habit, it’s his obsession. He takes that damn camera with him everywhere, that boxy thing that he lugs around and says, Say cheese, folks, say cheese. It’s an Ansco Speedex folding camera. Mike doesn’t know how he knows that, just that he does. But Walter’s always there, right? At every event. Every picnic. Every festival. He’d be smiling and folks would be smiling back at him and they’d say cheese and there’d be a bright flash. More often than not, they’d end up on the wall. Mike knows that if he looks hard enough, he can find every single person living in Amorea on that wall.

  He thinks, And maybe a few that aren’t.

  How foreign, that thought is.

  How did he get here?

  Wüsthof Ikon Damascus.

  Angry woman.

  Glass breaking.

  Photos falling.

  Daniel Houle and George Kettner.

  They were fighting over… over what? Money. Daniel owed George money. And Mike was first aware of it because of raised voices. And pictures being knocked off the walls. There were two—

  three

  —of them, and he picked them up after the fight was over, wanting to make sure no one stepped on the glass.

  The photo of sledding on Thrill Hill.

  The Amorea Women’s Club Bake Sale.

  That was it. That was all there was.

  His wrist itches.

  His brain itches.

  Because was that all there was?

  He picked up the sledding photo.

  And then the Amorea Women’s Club photo.

  And then Walter came in and… they… talked?

  Mike wipes away the sweat on his forehead.

  Yes, he knows they talked. Because Mike asked… something.

  He pushes.

  The pressure behind his eyes begins to build. He puts his face in his hands and rubs the sides of his head with his fingers. Maybe he shouldn’t push. Doc doesn’t think he has a brain tumor (What do you know about schizophrenia?), but that doesn’t mean he won’t force himself into an aneurism. Or a stroke. Because that’d be his luck, wouldn’t it? He shouldn’t push.

  But he does. Just a little bit harder. Just to see.

  He—

  What about the woman?

  What woman?

  The woman in the photo. Next to Sean.

  Mike takes in a shuddering breath.

  He drops his hands and he—

  He’s lying on his back and blinking up at white lights and there’s people moving around him, above him, and there are machines, he knows there are machines, but it’s hazy and he’s confused and he—

  He’s in the diner.

  He’s in the diner.

  People are eating around him. The forks and spoons scrape along plates and bowls. It smells like bacon and coffee. He drops his hand to the table. It’s sticky under his fingertips, like syrup was spilled a while ago but not yet wiped away. It’s real. He feels it. He knows it.

  As was the woman in the photo. Standing next to Sean. He can see it in his head clear as day. His head is throbbing, yes, right behind his left eye, but he can see it. Happy and Calvin and Donald and Sean all standing in a row. And there was a woman, an African Queen, and she was there too, standing right next to Sean, and she was in love. With whoever had taken the photo, she was in love with that person. Walter didn’t know who it was. Walter, who said he took the photo of the woman in love with the photographer. He took all these photos, and he didn’t know who the woman was.

  Nadine, Mike thinks. Nadine the African Queen.

  Hidden away, sight unseen.

  “Hey.”

  Mike sucks in a breath. His hands are shaking on the table. It’s like he’s been startled awake.

  Sean’s standing there, head cocked. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Mike says, but it’s weak and rough. He tries again. “Yes. Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Sean says, and Mike’s heart trips all over itself. “You looked a little lost in thought there.”

  He was lost in something, that’s for sure. Because he knows what he saw. Or what he thinks he saw. Or what he imagined he saw. He says, “You know how it is.”

  “Sure,” but it’s said cautiously, and Mike knows he’s probably still a little wide-eyed at the moment. “Sorry it took me so long to get over. Busy morning, big guy.”

  “It’s all right. It happens.”

  Sean sits down across from him with a groan. Their knees knock under the table, and Sean’s foot is against his. It’s good. It’s right. Mike loves it. Mike’s also still thinking about the photos on the wall and if there are any others that are folded away, hiding their secrets. He shouldn’t be. He really shouldn’t be, because there’s only so many hours in the day he gets to be with Sean, but it’s there. It’s there and he can’t stop thinking about it.

  Because he wants to know if Nadine the African Queen loved someone as much as her face said she did. And if she did, who did she love like that?

  He told himself it’d get better.

  It’s gotten worse.

  He looks at Sean, and Sean smiles at him, and he thinks of the Harvest Festival, only five days away, and he wonders what it would feel like to dance with him. To hold him close and sway to the music. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more, aside from Sean himself.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” Sean asks.

  “You,” Mike admits, rubbing the back of his neck. And it’s the truth, even if it’s only partial.

  There it is. There’s the just-for-Mike smile. “What about me?”

  “Dancing.”

  “Dancing? You want to dance with me, big guy?”

  “Yeah,” Mike says. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  Sean laughs.

  And Mike makes a decision.

  XVI

  IT’S LATE, the sky dark and the moon new, so it’s all stars and streetlights. Mike’s moving in shadows past the houses where Amorea sleeps, lights off and dreaming. He thinks that he’s being stupid, that he should be at home in his bed like everyone else, but he thinks that maybe Nadine the African Queen was looking at whomever took the photo like Mike looks at Sean. And if that’s the case, he can’t let it go. He can’t let her stay hidden.

  Before he walked out of the diner that afternoon to walk Sean home, he looked near the door, and sure enough, there was a photo with Calvin, Donald, Sean, and Happy, standing all buddy-buddy, mugging it up for the camera. He knew it was there, because he knew where all the photos of Sean were. It took all he had not to rip it of
f the wall right then and yell, See? See? See?

  That might have been smarter than what he’s doing right now. Because he lives in Amorea and it’s pure. People don’t lock their doors. If a place is closed, it’s closed and no one goes inside. It’s just unheard of. If it’s an emergency, sure, but no one goes to the diner in the middle of the night because of an emergency. Mike’s trying to justify it somehow, but he can’t make it stick.

  What do you know about schizophrenia?

  He’s not paranoid. He’s not. It’s there. She’s there and she’s in love, and he will find her and know that he’s not going crazy. That something else is happening.

  Then he can work his way up to showing others the bigger things. And they’ll believe him. They won’t have a choice but to believe him.

  They aren’t delusions.

  He’s onto Main Street without seeing another soul, but he expected as much. The businesses of Amorea are dark, the marquee for the cinema rising into the night. The streetlamps are lit, surrounded by the autumn garlands, and it’s quaint, really, but it’s also more sinister at night. Mike’s not scared of the dark. He is scared of the things he doesn’t understand. Which is why he’s listening for footsteps, for voices, for an angry woman with a Wüsthof Ikon Damascus knife that costs more than he probably makes in a month.

  (He doesn’t know that, how can he know that, he doesn’t even know what that is.)

  He’s at the diner, and it’s quiet and empty, the only light coming from the glow of the timer on the coffeepot inside. It’s orange and muted, but he can see it through the diner windows.

  He pauses at the door, wondering if he really has it in him to take this next step. He knows that once he steps inside, there’s no going back. He’s certain the picture is there like he thinks it is, folded and hiding Nadine. He knows it is.

  But being human means having doubts, and however certain he may be, that little voice says, And if it’s not? What then, Mike?

  He does an awful thing then.

  He hesitates.