Murmuration

THE NEXT time he wakes, there’s a man standing at the edge of the bed. He’s watching Mike and Greg, and they know him. They’ve seen him before. Mike has anyway.

Greg thinks, Who is he?

Mike thinks, You can’t see, can you? None of you can. You’re glazed over. Hollow on the inside. I see you in my garden, you know? You’re brittle and thin and won’t take much to break. You’d break easily, I think. Maybe not as easy as the others, but you would. Because when is a door not a door? When it’s ajar, but also when it’s been blown to pieces and there’s nothing between us.

Greg thinks, What?

Mike thinks, He stood at the edge of my bed once. In Amorea. He said I was in his garden.

“I heard you were awake,” the man said. He gives a smile, but it’s slimy and makes their skin crawl. “I had to come see for myself. Never had a vegetable taken from the Garden.”

Mike says, “Who are you?”

Greg growls, “Tell me who the fuck you are.”

The man flinches. “I am the gardener.” He snaps his fingers, like a tic. “I keep watch over the vegetables. You were mine once.”

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” a woman says from the doorway. Mike and Greg recognize her as one of the nurses.

“Just got lost,” the gardener says. “Turned around. This place is so big. You know how it is.” His voice is high-pitched and he’s laughing a little, eyes wide and wet.

“I’m calling Dr. Hester,” the nurse says, turning away from the doorway and disappearing. The gardener stares after her, wringing his hands and muttering to himself. Before he leaves, he turns back to Mike and Greg and says, “When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar and leads to somewhere else.”

Then he’s gone.

Dr. Hester’s in there moments later, chair whirring.

Mike and Greg watch him passively.

“What did he say to you?” Dr. Hester asks.

“That I was his once,” Mike says.

Dr. Hester turns his wheelchair around and leaves.

“WHO ARE you?” the woman asks. She introduced herself as Dr. Julienne King. She said she’s a neuropsychologist, that she studies the function of the brain as it relates to psychological processes and behaviors. That she studies people who have suffered brain injury or neurological illness.

Mike thought, What do you know about schizophrenia?

“I don’t need a shrink,” Greg snapped at her before Mike could say a word. They both felt the same level of fear and anger at the implication.

“Everyone needs a shrink,” she said. “But that’s not me.”

“Who are you?” she repeats now.

Greg dislikes her. Mike doesn’t trust her.

She waits.

“Mike,” he says.

“Greg,” he says.

He stops. He knows how that sounds. It sounds crazy.

Let me, Greg thinks.

No, Mike thinks. I don’t like you.