All the Birds in the Sky

MAGELLAN JONES WROTE epic poems in which Greek gods talked like 1920s gangsters. The gimmick had worn thin a decade ago, but by then he’d become a fixture at the North Beach café where all the disappointed poets nursed their demitasses of espresso grounds. Magellan held his fiftieth birthday party at that café, and he must have said the wrong thing, at last a wisecrack too sharp — because Dolly plunged the cake knife into Magellan’s chest, all the way up to the handle. His only friend, the only one who’d put up with his shit all along. She missed his heart, but she broke his heart. He could feel the dirty knife all the way inside him, the buttercream frosting too sugary for any bacteria to resist, and of course every last bug was antibiotic resistant nowadays. Magellan’s trademark Kangol hat whirled underfoot as he swayed, dying on his feet because he was a poet, dammit. Dolly cried and shook until her rainbow hair extensions fell out. Someone called an ambulance, but they shouldn’t have wasted their—

A woman touched Magellan’s forehead and whispered that she liked his poetry (mentioning one poem by title) while she slid the knife all the way out. His fatal wound became a minor laceration as the knife withdrew. He opened his eyes to see who had done this, but the woman was already gone.

Magellan fell to his knees at last, and Dolly wept on his shoulder until he took her face in his hands and said he forgave her and he was sorry.

* * *

JAKE DUG THROUGH the lesions on his arms, trying to find a pristine spot along a vein, when he looked up to see a woman’s hand suspending a ten-dollar bill over his box lid. “I’m worried about you, Jake,” the woman said, though he couldn’t see her face. “You seem worse than last week. Listen, if I give you ten bucks, will you swear never to do recreational drugs again?” He said yes and took the money. He soon discovered that hypodermic needles broke against his skin, every. Single. Time. Jake could still carve his skin with knives or nails, but even then the needle would snap against his vein. He was getting the frozen sweats already.

* * *

PHYLLIS AND ZULEIKHA skipped down the street in Hayes Valley talking soberly about the global economic crisis, the ocean rising faster than anyone had predicted, ever since the Chukchi disaster, and the links between malnutrition and the new pandemics — but also singing silly girltrash songs and laughing too loud, because they were young, crazy in love, and about to be meaningfully naked together in Zuleikha’s bed. They didn’t even notice a big man in a trench coat, smelling of chewing tobacco, coming up behind them with a military-grade neural decapacitator. Until he swung it and got first one, then the other, in the neck. Pacifying them. They were down on the sidewalk, eyes rolling up and mouths spouting drool, as the man reached for his zip ties.

Then the man heard a voice at his ear as he bent over the two prone women. Someone was right behind him, looking over his shoulder. A woman, all in black, with sharp green eyes. “You’re about to get caught,” she whispered. “They’re coming for you.” He pulled back, suddenly breathless. Sure enough, sirens rang in the distance. “If I let you forget this happened, what else will you forget?” she asked.

The shaggy-haired man had tears in his eyes and a tremor in his free hand. “Anything,” he said. “Whatever. Anything.”

“Then run,” she commanded. “Run, and forget.”

He ran. Limbs flailing, head whipping with his own panicked galloping strides. By the time he was a block down the street, he’d forgotten his own name. A few more blocks, where he lived and where he came from. The farther he ran, the less he remembered. But he couldn’t stop running.

* * *

FRANCIS AND CARRIE were screwed. Their lives were over, and you could hear their cries of despair from the street outside the UFO-shaped house. This was supposed to be the geek party to end all geek parties, where the A-listers met the thought-leaders, and visionary investors would supercollide with the best and brightest. Every detail was meticulous, from the three DJs to the fountain of exotic liquor to the organic slow-food hors d’oeuvres. They were even able to host it at Rod Birch’s place in Twin Peaks, with the living room that converted to a planetarium where the constellations changed shape to reflect the mood of the crowd.