Murmuration

by T. J. Klune

  She stares at him.

  He’s a little annoyed, but just says, “And you’re Allison?”

  “Yes,” the woman says faintly. “Ah. Yes.”

  “All right. Hi, Allison.”

  She says, “I’m just the physical therapist.”

  He doesn’t… understand, necessarily, what that means. He knows what a physical therapist is—part of him does, anyway—but it’s just there, out of reach, an idea he can’t quite get a grasp on. He says, “For what?”

  She drops her hand from her breast and takes a deep breath, like she’s trying to regain her composure. “For you, Mr. Hughes.”

  He frowns. Or at least he thinks he does. “I’m not Mr. Hughes. I told you, my name is Mike. Mike Frazier?”

  “Okay, Mike,” she says. “That’s okay. Please don’t tell Dr. Hester or Dr. King that I said that.”

  “I don’t know who they are. I know Doc, but he’s… huh. Name must have slipped my mind. We just call him Doc, anyhow. I won’t tell, don’t you worry.”

  “I just need to finish, Mike.”

  “Finish what?”

  “Your therapy.”

  “My what?”

  “Your physical therapy. You’ve been… out. For a long time.”

  He doesn’t understand that either, but he knows it’s pointless to argue in a dream, so he just says, “Okay. You do that, Allison.”

  She takes a hesitant step toward him. “Are you in any pain? I can get the nurse if you’d like.”

  He snorts. “No pain in dreams.”

  “This isn’t… okay. So, no pain.”

  “No.”

  She takes another step. “I’m going to need to put my hands on you. Is that okay?”

  “Why?”

  “For the therapy.”

  Things are starting to get a little hazier. “The therapy.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hu—Mike. It’s to help you.”

  What do you know about schizophrenia?

  He feels a cold chill run down his spine.

  “Help me with what?”

  “Your muscles. When someone has been in… in your position, there’s a tendency for muscle degeneration. It’s going to take time, Mike. It’s going to take a long time, but we’re going to help you, okay?”

  He doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and maybe she’s starting to frighten him a little. She seems kind, but he’s wary of her. “My position?” he asks.

  “I’m just a therapist,” she says, sounding a little desperate. “The doctors will be here to explain more later, okay? Just let me get through what we need to get through.”

  He nods. She seems surprised at that.

  She’s standing next to him again, and she’s reaching down toward his arm. Her fingers are trembling, but he says nothing of it. He feels the moment she touches him again, and he’s not sure he likes it, but she’s obviously being careful with the amount of pressure she’s putting on him. She starts with his hands, working his fingers, and he tries to squeeze back, but finds it hard. His fingers twitch, but won’t do what he’s asking them to do.

  She moves to his forearm, and there’s even more pressure, and then she’s lifting his arm and he—

  His vision tunnels to little pinpricks. Everything begins to buzz around him.

  She holds his arm up.

  He knows it’s his arm.

  He can feel her fingers on him.

  He can see her fingers on him.

  He thinks, This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream.

  Because the arm she’s holding, his arm, is nothing but skin and bone. The joints of his wrist are jutting out sharply, and the skin on his forearm looks pale and paper-thin. He’s always been a big guy, always been muscular. This can’t be his arm. This stick covered in skin cannot be his arm.

  She’s working it up, pulling the arm farther, bending it at the elbow, and he sees his bicep, and it’s small enough that she’d be able to fit her whole hand around it, and the skin is sagging, the deteriorated muscle is sagging, and it’s—

  Mike Frazier begins to scream.

  HE’S STILL screaming when more people rush in, the therapist having dropped his arm back onto the bed, then hit a button on the wall. She’s wide-eyed again at his hoarse cries, but he can’t stop, he can’t stop, because he needs to wake from this nightmare, he needs to—

  He sees a needle and sees it flash down toward his hand. There’s a thin tube stretching out from his wrist and a small orange cylinder fitted into his skin. The plunger is depressed into the line from his wrist, and a gray wave begins to roll over him, but not before he sees the markings on his skin, just below his hand, black lines etched into his skin: 4221552082.

  He’s pulled under the wave.

  EVERYTHING IS hazy after that.

  For a very long time.

  HIS MOUTH is dry the next time he’s aware. He has more clarity about him, thoughts not as muddled. He’s able to put an order to them, and he thinks, I must have drunk too much last night. I hope Sean’s not too angry with me.

  He opens his eyes.

  He’s still in the white room.

  The machines are still around him.

  There’s a window off to the right. He can see the orange and red leaves on a tree, but not much more. The sunlight looks weak, like it’s still early.

  He thinks, I don’t know where I am.

  There’s a low-level panic running through him, but it’s almost negligible, and it doesn’t overwhelm him, no matter how much he expects it to. It’s being held back by something, and he doesn’t know what.

  He tries to get up.

  He can’t.

  His fingers move. And his toes move. He can feel them. But he doesn’t have the strength to lift his head. Can’t get his body to do what he’s telling it to do.

  “Your muscles have atrophied,” a voice says. “It was expected.”

  He jerks his head to the left.

  Sitting next to his bed (because it is a bed, with rails on either side and wires jutting out of it and him, and his throat starts to close, because what is this, what is this) is a man.

  He’s a slight man. An old man. His skin is wrinkled, and he has tufts of thin white hair jutting up from a pale skull. His eyes are sunken in their sockets, and he’s hunched over in a wheelchair. But his eyes are clear, and he’s watching Mike with a calculating expression that he doesn’t know what to do with.

  “What?” Mike croaks out.

  “Muscles. They have memory, in a way. It’s the repetition of daily life. The more you train them, the more they expect from you.” He sighs. His hands are shaking in his lap. Mike doesn’t think it’s from nerves or fear. “When you don’t give them what they expect, they fade. It’s called disuse atrophy. There’s nothing that can be done to stop it.” He smiles grimly. His lips are thin and his teeth are large. “Whether it be from trauma or disease or some other outside factor. The brain is the same way. If it’s not used, it can waste. However, there are times when, even if it’s used to its fullest extent, that something can happen. Something that makes it begin to fade. Begin to break apart. Become soft. It’s not disuse that causes it, but it atrophies, just the same. Trauma. Psychosis. Disease.” He snorts. “It’s really rather frightening how fragile it is for how much it actually does.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. Your brain is a remarkable thing. As is mine. It’s not fair to compare the two, because they’re remarkable for different reasons. Do you know who you are?”

  “Mike Frazier.”

  “And what year it is?”

  “1954.”

  The man nods, as if this is the answer he expected. “Beta-blockers,” he said. “They cause memory issues. And being in stasis for as long as you were. It’s not… an exact science. Not yet. It’ll get there. It’ll have to, if they want to put men on Mars.”

  “Stasis? Mars?” And the panic is there still, and he’s thinking, What do you know about schizophrenia? Or that Th
ey Came from Outer Space? This is just another dream. Another event. You’ll write it down and then you’ll wake up in your bed and it will be fine. Everything will be fine.

  “We’ll get there. First, my name is Dr. Malcolm Hester. You don’t know me, but I know you. Very well.”

  “I want to wake up,” Mike says in a small voice. He tries to move his arms and legs again. But they’re sticks here. Little tiny things in this horrible, horrible place. They won’t support him even if they could move. He’s a big guy, after all.

  “I know,” he says, and it’s not without sympathy. But Mike thinks it’s more pity than anything else, and it’s almost cold. Detached. Clinical. “And you’re going to feel like that for a while, I would assume. We’ve never… been in this position before. There was never supposed to be an event like this.”

  “I don’t care,” Mike says, and his throat is hurting really bad now. He’s got to find a way to wake up. He’s got to find his way back home to Amorea. Maybe morning will come soon and Sean will shake him awake. Sean will—

  “You will,” Dr. Hester says. “I am going to tell you some things. You’re not going to believe me, and that’s fine. You will, in time, when everything starts coming back to you again. The drugs will work their way out of your system and it should come back to you, piece by piece. We think. We hope. Again, we’ve never been here before. The fact that we’re even having this conversation is far beyond anything I ever expected.”

  He thinks, I don’t know what you are. I don’t know what you want. I just want to go home.

  He says, “I don’t know you.”

  Dr. Hester shakes his head. “I know that. You weren’t ever supposed to. What is your name?”

  Circles, so many circles. “Mike Frazier.”

  “What year is it?”

  “1954.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Amorea,” he says and he’s hit with such a pang of longing that it causes his heart to stutter in his chest. One of the machines next to the bed begins to beep annoyingly. Dr. Hester glances at it, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He reaches out and presses a button, and it falls silent again.

  “Your wrist,” Dr. Hester says. “May I touch it?”

  He thinks, No. No, go away, go away and leave me alone.

  He says, “Will you help me wake up?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Hester says, not unkindly. “I will try and help you wake up.”

  “Okay.”

  Dr. Hester puts a single gnarled hand on a knob sitting on the armrest of the wheelchair. The chair moves forward with a low whirring sound, until Dr. Hester is right next to Mike’s bed. He reaches up for something just out of Mike’s vision, and the bed starts to lower. It stops moving when he’s even with the man in the chair. Dr. Hester grunts as he jerks the railing, causing it to fold to the sides.

  When his hands touch Mike, Mike has to fight not to shudder against it. The touch is dry and a little cold, and he doesn’t like the way it feels. His arm is being raised again, and he sees his thin fingers first, and they’re twitching. It feels like little pinpricks are being pressed along his skin and he has to fight not to grimace.

  His hand starts to flop over on its own, but Dr. Hester keeps it in place. He sees the orange insert near his wrist, the tube that stretches out from it. The doctor is careful not to jostle it.

  His eyes are drawn to the tattoo on his wrist. The numbers. Those damn numbers.

  “These,” Dr. Hester says, “are dates.”

  Mike knows this. He’s figured that out already. He doesn’t know why this man, this fictitious person would know the same (of course, it could be his subconscious speaking, and Mike knows that what he knows, it would know).

  “Dates,” he says, feeling a little sluggish now. Not as aware.

  “Yes. Dates.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ve seen them. Felt them. My wrist itched.”

  “Did it? How fascinating.” He sounds rather breathless. “Oh, I have so many questions for you. But first things first. What are these dates?”

  “April 22.” He pauses, trying to think. “1915. And May 20. In 1882.”

  “And what do they mean?”

  “I don’t know.” He’s fading again. It feels unnatural. Like he’s being forced down. “Sometimes, I’d remember them. And sometimes I wouldn’t.”

  “And you’re Mike Frazier. And it’s 1954.”

  “Yes. Where’s Sean?”

  “Focus. I need you to focus.”

  “I’m dreaming.”

  “No. You’re not. This is real.”

  “What do you know about schizophrenia?” Mike asks, and he doesn’t know why.

  Dr. Hester’s eyes widen. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Doc,” he says. “In Amorea. You’re not real.”

  “I assure you I am.”

  “You’re not real. None of this is real. They Came from Outer Space, or it’s the Reds and you’re experimenting on me, but none of this is real. You are ghosts. You aren’t here. Where’s Sean?”

  “He’s fine. He’s safe. I need you to listen—”

  “Did you hurt him?”

  “No. I didn’t hurt him.”

  “If you hurt him, I will fucking tear you apart. Nothing will ever stop me from tearing you apart. You can’t hurt him. You can’t.”

  “You need to calm down. No one has hurt anybody. I need you to listen to me. Mike, are you listening?”

  He wasn’t. He couldn’t. Things were going gray around the edges, and that low-level panic was starting to become something more. It was crawling through him, starting in his stomach and working up to constrict his lungs. “I want to go home,” he cries out. “Please, just send me home.”

  “You are home,” Dr. Hester says, his grip on Mike’s wrist tightening. “Look. Look at me.”

  Mike does, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

  Dr. Hester says, “Your name isn’t Mike Frazier.”

  Dr. Hester says, “Your name is Gregory Hughes.”

  Dr. Hester says, “You are thirty-six years old.”

  His thumb covers the first four numbers, leaving only 52082 visible.

  Dr. Hester says, “You were born May 20, 1982.”

  Dr. Hester says, “It’s not October 2, 1954.”

  Dr. Hester says, “It’s October 2, 2018.”

  His thumb covers the last five numbers. Only 42215 remained.

  Dr. Hester says, “On April 22, 2015, there was an event that led to you developing encephalitis. You fell into a coma. Mr. Hughes, you have been unconscious for three years, five months and ten days. When we found you, you’d already been in a coma for one hundred and thirty-nine days. Which is why I needed you for Project Amorea. Now you’re awake. And there is so much we can learn from you.”

  Everything whites out.

  XXI

  HE’S NOT sure how much time passes before he’s aware again. He remembers being lost in a fog. He’s not sure if he walked through it or crawled through it, but he remembers crying out for Happy. And Calvin. Walter. Donald. Mrs. Richardson.

  And Sean, of course. Always Sean.

  The problem, when he comes to, is now there are two of him.

  It’s not as if he has a double. There’s not another Mike Frazier sitting next to him that he can see and touch, but there is a Gregory Hughes, or Greg, as he likes to be called. He’s not real, he’s not visible, but he is there, and he’s splitting Mike’s mind right down the middle.

  When he opens his eyes he thinks, My name is Mike Frazier. I am from—

  And at the same time, thinks:

  My name is Greg Hughes. I am from—

  He stops.

  It’s twisted. In his head.

  He knows it’s wrong. He knows someone did this to him.

  But at the same time, Greg fits him like a glove, sliding over him, overlaying everything that he thought he knew.

  It’s not complete, of course
it’s not. There are large gaps that seem to span years.

  He’s Greg when he thinks, My mother was named Lauren. My father was Allen. Everyone called him Al. He beat my mother for years. They died in a car accident. It was very sad.

  He’s Mike when he thinks, I live in Amorea. I live in a house at 133 Sunlight Way. I have a cat named Martin and my fella is named Sean.

  He’s Greg when he thinks, I grew up in Roseland, Oregon, a little crap burg in the middle of nowhere. A big flood happened there in 2013 and destroyed part of the town. We were poor. My father was angry all the time. And I grew up angry because of it, but I was able to hold it back. Mostly.

  He’s Mike when he thinks, I grew up in… I don’t know. Somewhere.

  There’s a little crack in him then, down this great divide.

  He’s Greg when he thinks, I work for Liberty Investment Group in Washington, DC. I have a nice job. I have a nice car, though I don’t use it very much because I can take the Metro every day. I have a very full life.

  He’s Mike when he thinks, I own a bookstore called Bookworm. It’s very popular. People come in every day. There is a book club on Mondays where we sit around and discuss literature. It’s very fulfilling. I have a very full life.

  He’s lost in it, this duality.

  It stretches on.

  He’s vaguely aware of the world moving around him, of other people coming and going, but it’s like the first days, when it was all seen through the milky haze. He can pick out bits and pieces, words like shock and catatonia and what if he slips back? What if he—

  He’s moderately aware when they come to bathe him. When they come to work his stick-thin limbs. When they change the bag of piss. When they clean him after he’s shit himself. They tell him he needs to fight, that he’ll walk again if he just fights, that he needs to come out of it. They inject him with things that make him feel like he’s on fire. That make him sleep. That make the nightmares so vivid that it’s Sean who tackles him through the glass onto the balcony, that it’s Sean who has a knife. In the worst of the dreams, he wrestles the knife from Sean’s hands and says, “You shouldn’t have done that, bucko,” and he sounds so much like Greg’s father that he can barely keep from screaming. He stabs Sean a lot in those dreams, filled with this great anger, that it’s all his fault, that their daughter wouldn’t have died if he’d just taken better care of himself.