Murmuration

Mike tells him.

Tells him about the voices he’s started hearing. Tells him about the man at the end of his bed. Tells him about the birds and their great cloud. About Nadine the African Queen and the man she loved. He gets a little lost there because he doesn’t know her, and he can barely remember him (Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, fo sho, Mikey, let me tell you). He tells him about the morning that started all of this, that morning when he didn’t come into the diner, the morning he doesn’t remember how he got where he was. He talks about how he feels cracked and hollowed out, and doesn’t know what to do about it.

Through it all, Sean doesn’t look away. He doesn’t recoil in disgust or fear. He doesn’t tell Mike to leave. He doesn’t tell him he’s crazy.

Mike says, “Doc says it could be delusions. Paranoia. Paranoid schizophrenia. That it’s all in my head, that I could be making all of this up.”

Sean snorts. “One-way ticket to Crazytown?”

“The round-trip ticket was probably too expensive,” Mike mutters.

They stare at each other. Sean breaks first, a little breathless laugh that turns into a chuckle. It just crawls out of him until Mike can’t do anything but laugh too, and soon they’re clutchin

g each other, cackling as their foreheads press together. The vise around Mike’s heart slowly loosens, and yeah, he’s got Sean.

Eventually, the laughter fades. Sean reaches up and wipes the tears from Mike’s cheeks. He doesn’t know when he started crying, just that he did.

“So you trashed the diner,” Sean says.

“Yeah.”

“All the photos off the wall.”

“Most of them.”

“But you stopped when the ghost aliens came again.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you were strapped down and couldn’t move.”

“About right.”

“And you have memories of someone else hitting a woman after she attacks him with a big knife.”

“And pushes him through a window.”

“Right. Through the window.” Sean frowns. “And disappearing tattoos on your wrist for dates in 1915 and 1882.”

“Yeah.”

“And we’re on an island. Like in that book you read.”

“Or in a fishbowl.”

Sean frowns. “How’s that?”

“Everyone can see in while we’re trapped, swimming in circles.”

“Okay. I have to ask.”

And here it goes. Here’s where Sean tells him to get the hell out. Here’s where he finds out that he’s truly alone. “What?” Mike croaks.

Sean looks him straight in the eye and says, “Did you make all of this up to get out of going to the Harvest Festival with me?”

Mike gapes at him.

Sean cocks an eyebrow.