The following is a sample from the novel.

Chapter One

Adrift in a basket on an ocean of sky, Coriander eyes the fire spewing from their table and tries to choose between undesirable endings: burn to death in a hot air balloon or fall a thousand feet onto sharp rocks and cacti? Their balloon flies at the center of a jewel-toned armada whose bright colors flash against salt-white clouds. For a last meal, this feast for the eyes would be sumptuous if any of it were real. In truth, there are no balloons, no gas burners or snow-caked Saguaros; just a sentient cafe that hijacks patrons’ eyesight to serve Arizona Airfield alongside the brioche French toast and spicy potatoes.

Real as potatoes, Coriander adds sugar to an espresso blacker than their hair while a girl walks toward them through open air. Clouds seem to congeal around her legs because the cafe knows children cannot fly, but is itself too young and immature to invent a better lampshade. The girl comes right up to Coriander’s basket, folds her brown arms on the wicker, and asks, “Do you have more than one person in your head?”

Their stomach drops.

“Don’t be scared,” the girl says, “my mom is plural and she always gets two drinks because one of her headmates is a Coffee Person and the other is a Tea Person. Me, I’m a Milkshake Person. What are you?”

Beside the espresso cup is an empty mug that once contained apple cider. Indecisive is what they are. Equal parts relieved and amused, Coriander answers candidly: “Two of us are Coffee People and Mouse loves all things sweet.” The statement sets off an internal debate between three headmates:

MOUSE: Not true. I hate honey.

HAM: Dutch, have you forgotten throwing up baklava?

DUTCH: I raised a child, Ham. You think any puke is memorable?

Unaware of the conversation unfolding in Coriander’s head, the girl declares, “When I grow up I’m going to be plural, too, with my best friends as headmates. We’ll live in my body because I’m the best at cartwheels. Watch me.” Shells in her hair clatter like rain as she performs a gravity-defying cartwheel that turns her from a human child into a child-shaped stack of clouds. Roughly where her mouth should be, the vapor splits to reveal teeth in a wide grin. Coriander flinches as this sinister visual drags them out of headspace back into what passes for a real world. Cloud Girl giggles, moments before she is tackled by a woman wearing eagles on her feet. 

The woman (her mother) says, “Forgive our daughter. She thinks everybody is her friend.” The eagles flap uselessly at the end of two muscular, non-nonsense legs, the kind of legs Dutch’s mother acquired hauling bags of potting mix up the sheer face of a mountain.

“We don’t mind,” Coriander says, radiating the warmth plurals feel when encountering others of their kind in the wild. The plural mother reflects it back to them, bobs appreciatively, and steers her kid away. Still smiling, Coriander watches them go and reaches for a sugar cube. 

HAM: Another one, Mouse?

MOUSE: I blame your taste buds.

DUTCH: There’s nothing wrong with Ham’s taste buds.

MOUSE: You’re biased, Dutch. You like the spice tolerance.

Pooling their willpower, Ham and Dutch retract Coriander’s hand before it reaches the bowl.

MOUSE: Come on!

HAM: We got you apple cider, Mouse.

DUTCH: In his defense, drinking it first did make the espresso bitter.

Ham does not disagree.

The second cube lands atop the first, leaving its crenelated surface protruding from the coffee like an island. Coriander gently swirls their cup, coaxing Sugar Island to sink into the roasted ocean the way the artificial sun is sinking into desert sand.

In this part of the world the real sun sank hours ago, but Cafe Arizona shares a timezone with its namesake. Just shy of 7PM local, the cafe is only now dressing itself for dinner, swapping the blue caftan of afternoon for an evening robe of lavender velvet lightly embellished with stars. A pink feather boa unfurls on the horizon, followed by more stars heaped on like costume jewelry. Every sunset is a production at Cafe Arizona.

When the virtual sky is choked with glitter, Coriander finishes their espresso, pulls on an ankle-length blue coat, and follows a red star to the EXIT for it is time to go to therapy. Darkness blankets the real outdoors. Despite this being a major city, there is no artificial light, so Coriander must dial up the light sensitivity on their oculars to navigate the unpaved greenways. If the moon is out on this frigid November night, the brick buildings that flank the greenway are blocking all of its light. More than once, they flinch at a shape made sinister by shadows.

HAM: I know you’re scared of the dark, Mouse, but that’s a potted plant.

MOUSE: I’m not scared! I’m adjusting.

DUTCH: How long is this adjustment going to take? You’ve been here four years.

Children of the Twenty-Fourth Century, Ham and Dutch may be accustomed to a world without light pollution, but Mouse, who was born two hundred years before them, is not. Absolute darkness takes getting used to, as does eating things that come out of animals, things like what bees throw up in the privacy of their waxy hives.

After ten minutes in the cold, Coriander shoves their hands into their pockets and chides themself for not wearing gloves. The electric prickle in their fingers is so strong it could reanimate a corpse, maybe even the corpse of a dead debate about hot air balloons. If you find yourself in a doomed one, what should you do?

HAM: Can you imagine needles pricking us everywhere?

MOUSE: I can and I’d still jump.

HAM: You can’t be serious.

DUTCH: Ham, consider the source...

Ham does and when he realizes his oversight he cringes so hard that Coriander—a body he now shares with two headmates—cringes also. Their six foot frame gets inches shorter.

MOUSE: Can we not make me remember what it is like to be burned alive?

HAM: Of course! I’m sorry, Mouse.

Coriander says aloud, “Apology accepted,” startling a nearby dog-walker. The man slips on some ice and to stop him from falling they grab his coat sleeve. In response, he wrenches free, snarls, “Fuck all of you!” and hurries away, dragging his dog like a sled over the snow. As limb-locked as that dog, Coriander stands and breaths and feels their heart pound. It is possible the man did not realize they are plural, that his “all of you” referred to “all artists” or “all transplants” or “all vegetarians” but none of these is as likely as “you and all the people inside you.” They experience a chill colder than anything winter can make. This is the kind of interaction they expect when they visit Dutch’s family, not something that belongs on a Downtown greenway.

Sighing resignedly, they move on.

DUTCH: Have you picked a fragment to discuss tonight?

MOUSE: Are you talking to me?

DUTCH: Yes.

MOUSE: It’s Ham’s turn.

HAM: No, we did my sweater last week. How about the kitchen sink, Mouse?

They shake their head.

HAM: Why not?

MOUSE: No lie could make that fragment happy.

HAM: It’s not about making it happy, Mouse; it’s about making it whole.

MOUSE: Maybe.

When he was little, Mouse experienced trauma involving a kitchen sink. Today he cannot recall the details of what happened, not because the memory is repressed but because it is decaying with his birth body in an unmarked grave. On the day Coriander was made, a Painter copied a third each of Mouse’s and Dutch’s connections into Ham’s body, erasing two thirds of Ham in the process. All three headmates were left with fragmented memories. Ham, for instance, remembers setting fire to a sweater, but not whose sweater it was or what they did to deserve arson. Doctor Sung helped Ham invent a story to explain his anger, and that enabled him to process and let go. Hoping she can do the same for Mouse and his fear, Coriander buzzes into her building and takes the lift to eight.