Hierarchy Of Nonsense

Behind a mane of damp, unwashed hair drooping over his desolate face and beneath the faint ridges of a day-old stubble growing over fresh red clots of blood, Orion’s eyes blink with bleak resignation, yellow from all the rubbing and tears. His left leg is folded under the right, and rusty shackles tie both his hands to a circular ring brutally jutted into the wall behind him. The skin under the cuffs has been rubbed pink. A beam of early-morning sunlight streams in from the s

The present-day Orion watches himself be fascinated by the charm of a coffee shop two blocks away from his and May’s college campus. The shop is smaller than what Madeleine is today but caters to the same set of aesthetics that all coffee shops do: a tiny nook of books with bent corners at the top, a line of chairs, stools, and oversized bean bags arranged in a narrow passageway separating the barista’s corner from the front door, a series of loose lights drenching the walls

It was Orion’s idea to talk about his second Reinstatement at the zoo. From a small distance away, June gazes softly at him, her hands folded, as he bends over a small blue information post-sign in the bird sanctuary, wearing a loud, beige, graphic T-Shirt with the print “California Raz ‘N’ Hell”, rocking back and forth on the vertices of his toes with his hands sunk deep into his pockets. He bites his upper lip before reading the sign. “Shrinking stomachs. Before migration,

Growing up, June had wanted to be an astronaut. She grew up in the suburbs of Mumbai, where seeing stars was a luxury because the sky was always hidden behind creeping, hazy tendrils of smoke and dust that shimmered and sometimes even sizzled under the perpetual heat and humidity of upwards of ninety degrees. Now that she thinks about it, the only star she could discern with absolute confidence was Rigel, named after Rijl Jauzah, which translates to the “left leg of the giant

In case a client cries during their Reinstatement, the Department’s handbook includes a short paragraph suggesting the immediate steps to take: the first, offer tissues; the second, offer water. In the Eraser’s room, surrounded by dust motes plummeting off the green couch, June finds neither tissues nor water. A second later, it dawns upon June that she does not really know what to do when she sees someone cry. Is she expected to give them a cookie, pat them on the back, tell

Orion Fields met May at a burrito restaurant. No, that is not right. This is not his first time meeting May, Orion recollects, and though the sound of scratching chalkboards marauds him when he tries to ponder over how he met May, a sandcastle of forgotten memories educes the epiphany that he’s known May for a long time. As Orion sees the world through the eyes of his past self with no control over his body, like a small pritchel hole carved into a flaky anvil, he pulses with