"Hussie," he said aloud, to no one.

At first, Q thought it was a deer. But its legs bent backward at too many joints. Its fur was the color of a CRT television tuned to a dead channel—that dancing, nihilistic gray. It had no face, just a smooth, oval head, but he could feel it smiling.

Q looked into the void. He saw himself at eight years old, crying over a dead goldfish. He saw himself at twenty-two, drunk and screaming at a mirror. He saw himself tomorrow, making coffee, forgetting this entire conversation except as a vague, golden ache behind his eyes.

He stood up, his joints popping. His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from his sister: "You alive out there?"