The father’s sitting in a small dim room adjacent to the kitchen. Shoulder strap of his tank top hangs down his upper arm. Steaming cup of tea in front of him, climbing space in rolling vapours. He leans back against the foot of the couch behind him with his legs crossed on the floor and looks up.

    “He’s fine?”

    “Yes.”

    “Good,” he says and he buries his face into his hands. “All that matters, then. I don’t even remember why I’m here. I think I gave up on the city a long time ago.”

  Sounds about right for Honest, Honest?. They’re ghosts now, lost and patched together from different walks of life, and maybe even centuries. The city keeps its sharp teeth hidden under the guise of redemption, but it likes preying on weak minds. It likes them best because they crumble readily under the majesty of its soulless schemes.

    “This place is evil.”

  Ah, few have the guts to say it out loud. There’s no nice way of going about this. The nature of the city is the heart of obsession. Maybe it’s a piece of the singularity itself. A defiant dance in illusions of constancy.

  But this man’s mind is taken with unseen shapes and unheard sounds. Still, his voice is low and careful and he licks his lips after the words escape his breath. Tasting the aftermath. As if he doesn’t want the city to hear. It does, anyway.

  His little confession doesn’t relieve him.

    “Maybe,” I say, walking in and sitting on the floor by him.

  He rubs his face and splotches of red bloom on his cheeks. The window’s filled with the same perpetual sunset. Gentle glow of unmoving time. It’s almost cozy.

    “But you aren’t scared of it, are you? Who knows what you’ve gone and done to know how to solve these streets. I wouldn’t have let you touch my boy.”

  His eyes are tired. There’s no anger in them.

    “But he was in such pain.”

  I wonder about that. I wonder if what the boy was feeling was really pain. After all, he was on the edge of the singularity. In the embrace of eternity. And he was taken with soft melancholy. I don’t think one feels all that much anymore. But it makes me think of something.

    “Are you in pain, then?”

    “I was,” his mouth squeezes shut. “Now it’s just numbness. The dreams don’t bother me any longer. Well, they’re not really dreams, are they?”

    “No.”

    “It’s the oddest thing. Almost like a memory. But so faint. I do think it’s a memory. Lingering and painful. I think I’ve lost a child before.”

  Those who are past the edge don’t look it. Maybe they take on the air of vague wisdom. Though it’s just momentary fever. Turbulences of the heart right before they go.

    “Could you tell me if I have?”

    “I cannot.”

  The city’s a red riddle. A knot you have to untie by yourself. If there’s anything to reveal, the streets will do it. They’ll find the right sanctuary to boil it out of you. And from time to time, they’ll entrust a whisper to philosophers.

  But our mouths are stitched shut.

  I hear the medium’s footsteps on the floorboards behind me. I hear the soft clatter of instruments. Her hushed instructions and her invisible students, eager to observe another case unfold itself. Eager to prove their knowledge.

    “Well, then,” he shifts onto his side and his blank eyes fix themselves on my face, once more. “I’ll tell you about this other thing. I heard a man’s voice. He told me to tell you. So, I have to.”

    “What man?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t remember but he had a pretty sort of name.”

    “What did he tell you?”

    “About a gas station. In the desert somewhere. He says there’s not much out there. But I've never left the city, so I wouldn't know. It wasn’t scary, I suppose the pain stopped after. So, at least, I was sort of grateful. Strange sort of blessing, isn't he? He told me you and your friend there will come see my son and to let you.”

    “Why?”

    “To tell you it’s a lie. That bird on your desk.” The man’s fingers reveal their tremors as he opens his palms in the air. They’re dry and smooth. “It’s really small, isn’t it? It’s a twisted shape, he said. Is and isn’t. I didn’t understand half of what he meant, you know. I felt so sick when he was speaking to me. Revolt down my spine. There’s something I’d like to ask of you.”

  I grit my teeth together.

    “I’d like to forget him, philosopher. Forget his voice and what it felt like when he spoke.”

    “What did it feel like?”

    “As if he had a million eyes and they all looked right through me.”

  I knock on his chest but it’s like knocking on stone. A deep muffled echo follows. No response. I knock again and the same happens. The same blunt, haunting echo. I take a stethoscope out of my case and press it against his heart.

  His chest is completely silent. I grab him by the arm but he doesn’t respond. Not when I shake him or call out to him. He doesn’t feel a thing. Slumped there against the couch, staring at the ceiling, his eyes glistening in the warm light. His mouth limp and flat and devoid of expression.

    “That’s very cruel,” the medium says, crouching next to me. “I’d like to open him up but I suspect the only reason he lasted this long was those few words he had to say.”

    “Go ahead,” I tell her, and I stand up a little taken with the dizziness of realization.

  This fucking plot goes much deeper and it doesn’t feel like a plot at all. It feels like an unfolding. Something clean of conspiring hands. I wonder about the consequences of intervening. Of cutting its path short.

  Maybe there’s no saving to be done.

  As the medium pulls his ribs apart, white and fleshy, she turns her gaze to me. Her face shadowy against the brightness of the room.

    “There’s nothing left”, she says.