Twelve performances. Twelve potential outcomes.
“Play until you reach the limits of existence,” Eudora had told them, back when it all began.
And just like that, AJ knew what she had to do.
“Yes,” she said, placing her hand in his. She let him pull her up onto the stage.
She was going to save them.
To save him.
Part I
Acting Lessons
Who? What? Where? When we ask these questions, we’re not just initiating a scene; we’re announcing our intention to play with the Cosmic Consciousness.
—Laughter & Death,byEzell Farr
Gladstone, Massachusetts
June 2000
AJ Graves rewound the video andhit play.
That morning, she was pulling a doubleheader at Reel World Video: watchingAstronauticalson the store’s silver Panasonic while writingAstronauticalsfan fiction behind the register.
Or she was trying to. She’d broken her arm last month during track finals—just in time for junior prom. Each keystroke was torment, but AJ typed on. Anything for her twelve followers.
Doubleheaders were one of many reasons AJ loved her shifts at Reel World. With four siblings at home, AJ barely had space to think, much less write. By contrast, a solitary afternoon among Reel World’s eclectic posters and inventory felt like teleporting from bleak Gladstone to New York—or what she knew of New York fromFriends, Felicity,andSaturday Night Live.
That was AJ’s dream—to move to the city and write forSNL.It was also why she watched and watchedAstronauticals,the 1964 cult series about hippie pirates traveling the stars in the hump of a giant space whale. The show was totally improvised, which according to Storm,Reel World’s owner and cinematic Yoda, made it a staple for any aspiring comedian.
And it was hilarious. As a devout fan, or Nautical, AJ could recite every line.
As episode 1.10, “The Mirror of Janus,” began to play, she glanced down at the cast restricting her right arm. The ink from her track teammates’ signatures had bled into the fiberglass like survivor’s-guilt tie-dye. AJ felt a stab of dejection; New York had never felt farther.
To put it bluntly, her stupid arm had ruined her life.
AJ’s endgame had been planned out so beautifully: A summer spent interning atTheBerkshire Eagleand attending heavily scouted soccer intensives would have perfectly teed up her senior year and college applications. With luck, she would have been looking at a full ride to NYU.
But her accident had destroyed all that.
No driving meant no internship atThe Berkshire Eagle.No vigorous activity meant no soccer intensives. No references, no scouts. No scholarship. No escape.
“Relax,” her mom had said. “You’re still a shoo-in for UMass.”
AJ’s entire family had gone to UMass. Her mom, her dad. Her siblings Patrick and Libby both loved it. Both popular. Both on track to graduate, return to Gladstone, become their parents, and die.
Now, at seventeen, AJ felt trapped—like the rest of her life had been scripted, and shehatedthis movie. Her hours alone at Reel World were her only escape.
The partition rippled, a beaded curtain depicting the All-Seeing Eye, and Storm emerged from the back room. A slender trans woman in her forties, she had long burgundy hair and nails to match.
“Age, good. You’re here,” she said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Oh?” said AJ, reaching into a Ziploc for a handful of Reese’s Puffs, her favorite.
Storm drummed her acrylics on the counter. “I’ve hired some extra help.”
