“Just… words, I guess. I’m hearing things.”
“What words?”
“Smartphone. Texting. Björn.”
“Hmm. And what do you see?”
“A man, standing at the edge of my bed. Birds.”
“Are you sleeping?”
No. “I don’t know.”
“Are you dreaming?”
Yes. “I don’t know.”
“Is the man with the birds? Or the birds with a man?”
“No. They’re separate. Do you…?”
“Do I what, Mike?”
He thinks, Murmuration. “It’s just. Starlings.”
“Starlings?”
“Birds.”
“I know what starlings are,” Doc says, arching an eyebrow.
“Oh.”
“You see them.”
“It’s called a murmuration.”
“What is?” Doc asks.
“The starlings. When they fly together.”
“How do you know that?”
Mike says, “I don’t know.”
“What do you smell?”
Anger and sweat. “Flowery perfume.”
Doc smiles. It’s not mean, but it’s not nice, either. “A past love, perhaps?”
There’s only been Sean for Mike. That’s one thing he’s sure of. “No.”
“Right, right. You feel them too?”
The itch on my wrist. The glass cutting into my back. “Yes.”
“What do they feel like?”