Santi lies on his back, the grass of the Uni Park tickling his neck, the air thrumming with a summer storm on the way. Here, in the green belt separating the city from the suburbs, the sky is dark enough to show him a scattering of lights. One set of stars, steady and constant, as if they are the only stars there have ever been.

He closes his eyes. Different stars, in different patterns, burned into his memory. When he lets himself see them all at once, the sky becomes crowded, impossible: a sea of blazing light.

Santi has always trusted in fate: that there is one way things have to go. He isn’t literal enough to believe that the future is written in the stars—he’s doing a PhD in astronomy, after all—but his memories of other skies still unsettle him. The idea that there are other possible configurations for the universe, that God could be running them all in parallel, cuts against everything he believes. The only way he can reconcile what he remembers is to think that it’s a message, one he’s not yet ready to understand. He watches the world like a detective, like a poet, waiting for the meaning to come clear.

In a square in the old town stands a ruined clock tower covered with graffiti. Over the other scrawls, someone has written in ragged black letters: NOT ENOUGH SKY. The first time Santi saw it, he stopped in his tracks. He was used to the city’s verbosity, slogans in a dozen languages blooming over its walls. But those three words felt like his own thought, transmuted through someone else’s mind, spoken directly back to him.

Sometimes he wonders if that’s the only reason he hasn’t gone mad. He is not alone. Someone else is dislocated in the same way that he is, and one day, he will meet them face-to-face.

When he opens his eyes, the stars are gone. He blinks, but it’s just the storm clouds moving in. A raindrop hits his cheek, then another. By the time he gets to his feet, the rain is sluicing down like a river. Thunder rolls, chasing him across the grass to the Physikalisches Institut. He holds up his card until the doors open. Inside, he shakes the rain out of his hair. It’s after midnight: the building is quiet. He still isn’t surprised when he reaches the glass door of the lab and sees a lone figure inside.

“Hi, Dr. Lišková,” he says as he walks in.