The grey boy lay prone on the sand.

He was an unending flow of empty thought, no purpose, no direction. Some small fraction of the steam aware that he was just lying there, but not quite sure why that was a problem.

Light blinded his eyes. Two pinpricks that filled his vision, blinded him. A tickle grew in the back of his mind, building like an avalanche. Fight or flight, a reflexive crawl that travelled over his arms and legs. He needed to react. Something far away and ever present yelled at him to move, to get up, to run away. He needed to act.

Do it.

NOW.

The grey boy jolted upright, body flailing. It took a half second delay before he could inhale. Sharp air that tasted of ozone dragged painfully as it entered long unused lungs. The gasps of emerging from ocean depths. Or from death.

His ears rang and his head rung. He rocked forward haphazardly, lacking control of his own body. The sound of screeching rubber and snarling horn filled his brain. He held his head between spindly hands, sucking in air and desperation, trying to tamp down the sudden shock of adrenaline.

When he entered that safe space, the grey boy peered through skeletal fingers to inspect the world around him. It blurred and blended and he tried to blink away the haze. Everything was draped in a dark blanket, obscuring all detail. All the grey boy could see was grey and forever.

Slowly, bit by bit, things came into focus. The cacophony died. And after everything cleared, the grey boy took in one final gulp of air. He swallowed but it felt like pushing down a lump a sand. He sat upright, his hands drooping between his knees.

“Huh,” he said.

It was a desert. A desert of grey and dark, sand and rock, long and unending. In the distance he could see the jut of mountains, great shadows against a stark sky, looking more like cardboard propped up against a wall. The sky itself was brilliant. Purples and blues, twinkling stars like pin pricks poked through a satin cloth. Pulsating novas exploded and imploded, reformed and made worlds over head.

The grey boy tilted his head back to watch.

“Well,” he said. “Fuck.”

He sat like that for what seemed like a moment, what seemed like forever, just watching the sky explode above him and the desert yawn in front.

The grey boy heaved one more heavy sigh.

“Okay.” He slapped his thighs. “Okay. Right.”

Shaking on unsteady legs, he rose to his feet. They felt complete unused, completely new. He wobbled to gain his balance arms out and breathing tight. He took a step, trembling like a newborn deer. But even they figured out how to run. He took another step. By the fifth, he began to get the hang of it.

The grey boy walked.

He walked to a horizon that never seemed to end. He headed in the direction of cut out mountains, but they never seemed to grow any closer. He shuffled his feet over grey rocks, feeling the abnormal shapes under the groves of his smooth skin. He kicked one.

And the grey boy walked.

He walked under a canopy of night, under the flashing of blues and pinks. They cast lights along the ground, colors that should not have been able to reach his piddly little planet, but still he could see his shadow dance. He kicked the same rock and it clicked and clacked over the hard packed earth.

And he walked.

Shuffling forward, with no real goal in mind. Until his feet hurt. The desert seemed to go on and on and on. Somehow he knew that even if he walked forever and ever, for the rest of his remaining days, he would not see the end of it.

The grey boy stopped.

It felt inevitable. There was nothing here for him. He wondered why he even woke up in the first place.

The grey boy sat back down in the dirt, ready to give up before he even began.

“Fuck,” he said again.

“Such a potty mouth,” something said back.

The grey boy’s head shot up. He looked ahead but only saw the unending grey desert. He swivelled his head around like a tank, scanning the horizon, but again only caught sight of nothing. He looked behind to see that straight line of earth and rock, leaning back on his hand.

And rested his palm in something soft.

“Hey! Look where you're goin', will ya?!”

The grey boy jerked back, hands ready in defense.

Seated on the ground directly behind him, as if squeezed out by the icing back of the universe, sat a small, formless, blob. It was made of a solid opaque purple that shone, even in the dark. Like a little night light. The pinks and purples danced across its skin. It jittered and shook violently, wriggling in place. Slowly, it looked back and up at the grey boy, greeting him with small beady eyes and a wide smile. It was missing an array of teeth and what few it had jutted out like crooked, perfectly square, tombstones from pink gums. A large tongue flopped out of the corner of their mouth, unable to stay in, and vibrated against the stone.

“Hello!” it chirupped.

“Hey,” the grey boy said.

“How ya doin’ kid?”

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“Alright,” the grey boy said. “Been better.”

“Sounds pretty good to me.”

They sat there in silence, the little blob looking up at the grey boy expectantly. The grey boy scanned the horizon again. He looked at from where he came, from the long traverse of land, then back down to the blob. Where had it come from? It clearly hadn’t been here while he was walking, he would have seen it. Wouldn’t he? It was so bright against the stark landscape, there was no way he could have missed it.

“Ain’t much to your face is there slim?” it asked.

The grey boy sat upright, indignant.

“Ain’t much to yours neither,” he said right back.

But still, he reached up to run a hand over his face.

It was smooth. A smooth blank expanse. Where eyes should have dipped in, there was only a flat surface. Where I nose should have jutted out, there was only slick, soft skin. Where lips should have been placed, there was only nothing.

“Ffff-”

“Don’t cuss!” the blob warned.

The swear on his not tongue fizzled like water on a stove. The grey boy let his arm flop to his side.

“What am I supposed to do then?” he asked.

“Get yourself a face,” the blob replied.

“How, exactly?”

“Ah. . .” The blob jiggled in place, grinning up at him, and said nothing else.

The grey boy sat back and faced out into the desert again. He looked out over the expanse in front of him, the one he had not yet travelled, identical to the one he had. He could feel the blob, warm and shaking, against the small of his back. The ground was rough under his palms as he leaned his weight on them.

“Think you can give me a ride?” the blob asked.

“To where?” the grey boy asked back, his voice sedate.

“Dunno.”

The grey boy scanned the horizon and the stars again. With a groan he stood up again.

“Well alright then.”

He scooped up the blob into his hands and held it close to his chest. And once again, he began to walk.

They were silent for some time, save for the soft clinks of the rocks under foot and the clacks of the blob’s teeth chattering together. It made the grey boy’s own teeth stand on edge before he could realize he had none. But still, he needed to break this silence.

“So what do I call you anyways?” he asked.

“The little kids called me Glib,” it said.

The grey boy looked down at the shaking thing in his arms.

“I’m not little,” he said.

“Sure you are!”

The grey boy furrowed his non brow and hummed flatly from a mouth that wasn’t there.

“Sure, Glib,” he said.

The blob, Glib, seemed pleased.

“What am I callin’ you?” Glib asked.

“My name is. . .”

The grey boy stopped dead in his tracks. A million times he could remember his name. A million times he had introduced himself. A million times, people had called on him. It was there, on the tip of his tongue. A song he could only remember a few notes to. It sat like a squat toad, refusing to move, from the back of his mind. He could taste the syllables, could feel the way it bounced in his mouth, knew the meaning of each and every letter.

But it did not come to him.

“Can’t remember can ya?” Glib asked and for once wasn’t smiling.

“Not a clue.” The grey boy started walking again.

“Just like you can’t remember your face.”

“Keep rubbing it in, dick.”

“Language!”

The mountains didn’t grow any closer. The sky still danced. The grey boy and Glib might as well have been walking in place. The grey boy hummed again in frustration.

“What do you mean forgot my face?” he asked, trying to conjure up the image of how he looked. He could recall standing in front of a mirror, seeing himself in pictures, touching the features of himself, but like his name they just weren’t there.

“Mean what I mean, slim,” Glib said. “We could just get you a new one.”

“I like my old one.”

“You don’t even remember it.”

“Yeah, but I know I like it.”

Glib closed their mouth and ground their teeth together. That really made the grey boy’s skin crawl on edge.

“Guess we got no choice,” Glib said and if it had the shoulders to shrug it probably would have. “We gotta get you to a Bizarre.”

“I . . . uh. . .” the grey boy choked on his words. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

“I did!” Glib chirruped.

“No you. . . okay nevermind.” The grey boy pinched the bridge of a nose that wasn’t there and ended up simply pulling on flat skin. “How do we get there?”

“Take a transport!” Glib said with pep.

The grey boy looked around him. There was nothing, as per usual, for miles and miles.

“You mean like a taxi?” he asked.

“No no no, more like a train.”

“Right,” the grey boy deadpanned. “A train. And where are we actually gonna find-”

And suddenly it was there. It wasn’t a second a go, but there it was. A small station. It was nothing more than a bench with an overhang and a big red sign with businesslike white lettering that said DESERT. It glowed with a light that buzzed, illuminating the night. Metal was shoved into broken concrete, frosted glass enclosed the thing, and the bench was designed so it would be impossible to lay upon.

“Oh. There,” the grey boy said.

“Yeah, that's what I said!” Glib said. “Don’t you listen, kid?”

The grey boy shuffled to the bench, gently placed Glib on one end, and sat down on the other. He waited, tapping out a tune on rail thin, grey thighs. He looked along the wall, looking for some kind of a schedule, but wasn’t sure what he would do with it. It wasn’t like there was time in that place.

“So hey-”

“Ah!” Glib shouted.

“AH!” the grey boy shouted back. “What!?”

“Who’re you!?” Glib seemed to scootch away from the grey boy, but couldn’t get very far without legs.

“I’m. . . we’ve been over this!” the grey boy leaned in to yell at Glib, just match the blob’s volume. “I don’t know!”

“How can you not know!?”

“I don’t know! Remember?”

And just like that, the blob instantly righted itself, seeming to come back down from hysteria.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” it said.

The grey boy stared down at his travel companion with incredulity. He choked on responses or even swears that he knew the blob wouldn’t like, but it simply started shaking in smiling again and all the grey boy had was to sigh and shake his head. They waited like that in companionable silence, when the grey boy remembered his initial question.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Nowhere, at the moment,” the blob replied.

“Okay.” The grey boy mulled that over for another long moment. “Why?”

The blob had no answer. Only sat and shook and smiled.

The grey boy looked at the tracks in the sand. He looked down one way and saw that they disappeared beneath the earth. He looked down the other way and saw the same.

“How’s a train supposed to-”

“LOOK OUT!”

An oddly familiar blare of a horn rang through the grey boy’s whole world and a bright white light filled his vision. He snatched the blob off the bench and pulled his legs up. He held his new friend tight to his chest, watching as a bullet train whizzed into the station. Brakes screeched along the tracks as it came to a sudden and shocking halt. It seemed to list forward, rearing with the still continuing velocity, despite its slow down. Until finally, it rocked in place and came to a perfect stop.

“Don’t stand past the yellow line,” Glib said with too much glee.

The grey boy’s bony chest heaved as he took in the train. He looked at the shiny chrome, seeing the skeletal reflection of a human he did not quite recognize. One with no face holding tight to a soft, shiny, smiling blob. The mirror image was interrupted with lines of red and white. A blue door swung open.

A hulking green figure the size of a refrigerator stood in the doorway. Thick fingers, each capped with yellowed, cracked fingernails, crinkled the frame. He wore a blue squared off jacket with shining gold buttons, gold tassel lapels, and a matching cap.

“Its. . .” the grey boy sputtered. “Its a train. Its a train! Here!”

“Yes,” the hulking figure said. “Get on.”

The grey boy stared up at creature. An engineer. A driver. He thought it best to not piss this man off. Instead, he cleared a throat that did not need clearing, slowly unfurled spindly legs, and rose to his feet, suddenly as shaky as they had been when he first awoke. The blob in his arms shook with equal violence. He looked down upon that smiling face.

“Who’re are you?” it asked.

The grey boy shrugged and stepped aboard the train.