The Ducks of San Sebastian

Chapter 13

Monday came around again, and Marco's morning routine did not go unchallenged until he opened the front door to see the sky the color of pumpkin a few months too early. The air was cold, and occasionally a flake of ash drifted downward from the heavens to break the stillness. He went inside to grab a light sweater. It was probably fine.

Nobody else was out, but if it were truly an apocalypse and not just a wildfire somewhere in the north, he'd have known.

"Oh the weather outside is frightful," Marco sang to himself, thinking it apropos. "But the fire's so delightful. When you've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" Another flake of ash brushed his cheek. That was morbid, even by his standards. But it was a joke worth retelling—not anything about whales. He tried mumbling through the rest of the lyrics, but couldn't remember anything but the chorus—according to Google, the rest of the lyrics were nothing catchy, just a relic from the era when all songs were about love. If he ever became a film producer, it would be a great song to play over a nuclear apocalypse. Something like a modern Dr. Strangelove.

The water at Pavilion Park looked even prettier in orange, like it were reflecting a Hawaiian sunset; the ducks swam unbothered by the color inversion. Science dictated that all the particles, ash aside, were in the atmosphere too far above the air they breathed to matter, but that didn't stop Marco from thinking it all an omen. Climate change, again—rising temperatures, drier grass, mercurial ocean currents, fish boiling alive. The usual. He took a photo for his parents, as if they were not about to see the same sky as they began their days, and went to breakfast, shivering slightly in the unnatural breeze.

Waterfront Pavilion was just as full as usual, which made sense: if there truly were an apocalypse, what better way to celebrate than a last meal of dim sum?

"Weather's interesting today," Marco remarked to the cashier.

"We'll all be here anyway," he said back, gesturing to the full tables. Marco went and took his own seat.

There was a chance, however faint, that by the time the others woke up, the sky would have returned to normal. Marco sent them that morning's gatesofheller posting, a quip that the sky had brought pumpkin spice latte season to the Bay a few months early (which prompted comments saying that pumpkin spice latte season was a state of mind), asking them too "did you see the sky?". It was admittedly hard to miss, but still deserved comment. It was also the sort of thing the club would inevitably comment on, and have become a metaphorical fixture of their speeches for weeks straight as members jockeyed to outmatch each other rhetorically—and that intrusive thought proved again that the club's hegemony wasn't simply telling people what to wear, it was controlling their thoughts, such that every conversation drifted toward the club.

Sometimes people talked about having "school friends" and "real friends" depending on if you were friends because some matchmaker had put you as part of the same orientation group, the same book club, or something else where the smiles were forced, or through chance—a shared hobby, a mutual acquaintance. It was with these school friends that there was truly nothing interesting to discuss but how President Haneul had been tricked into asking "what's updog?" or people's budding courtships—Jessica had wanted to talk about little else after that night at the fair. She would ask him if he had heard anything new—but Isaac certainly wouldn't spill, and God help you if you thought Vice President Cynthia would disclose her feelings to her school friends.

Another side effect of thinking about school friends was that they tended to appear when thought of—they were conjured of dream-dust only to scatter in the wind when graduation came. Greg Parsons and Gina Ping, the failed President Frank and Vice President Juliet, walked in and recognized him, and the waitress was all too happy to seat them at the same table.