Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jaime beckoning him from a side street. But he doesn’t want to leave, not after what he’s discovered. “The stars.” He’s been preparing for this moment his whole life. Now, the words come too fast, tripping over each other. “I—I remember constellations that don’t exist. Whole skies that never were. Every time I look up, all I see is what isn’t there.” Dr. Lišková’s fingers go to her wrist. He talks on into the void of her silence, waiting for an echo. “I went into astronomy to find out what it means. You went into astronomy to explain it away. But we both went looking.”

She doesn’t speak. The cigarette in her hand burns down, its long ashen tail like a dying star.

“It’s true.” Santi’s voice breaks on the word. “Tell me you remember. Don’t leave me alone in this.”

Her lips move. Santi feels a rush of premature joy.

“You’re not making any sense,” she says. The cathedral bells toll as she stumbles to her feet. The wine glass wobbles and falls, rolling until it rests in a crack in the table. “I’m going home. So should you. Forget this conversation ever happened.” She shakes her head. “God, I hope I will.”

Santi, lost, watches her walk away.

As he crosses the square from east to west, skirting the fountain toward the tall letters of her graffiti, he looks up. For a second, he swears he sees them all: every star he remembers, overlaid in a dazzling progression toward a meaning he doesn’t understand. In their silver light, the hands on the clock stand frozen at one thirty-five.

A Better World

Thora stands on the fire escape of the hospital’s ninth floor, watching the ash from her cigarette drift down to the street below. The old town of Cologne spreads out before her, a dark mass of crooked buildings broken by cobbled squares. The air vibrates with the sounds of carnival: the beat of a drum, the laughter of afternoon drinkers. A gaggle of people in animal suits runs down the alley, appearing and disappearing like a hallucination. To drown the noise, Thora hums to herself, a tune that’s been in her head since she woke up.

“Thought I’d find you out here.” Her colleague Lily comes to stand beside her.

“Mm.” Thora narrows her eyes, focusing on the ruined clock tower.

Lily waves a hand across her stare. “Earth to Thora?”

“Sorry. Yeah. I’m here. I just . . . Has it always been like that?”

Lily leans the way Thora is pointing. “Has what always been like what?”

“The clock. Stopped at twenty-five to one.”

“Yes,” Lily says, with an inflection of the obvious.

Thora frowns. “Since when?”

“Since the past two hundred years?”

“Right.” Thora rubs her tired eyes.