Kids of Appetite by David Arnold

seemed duller, more shallow or something.
    He pulled his iPod from his jacket pocket, pushed his long hair behind both ears, and stuck in his earbuds.
    Conversation over, I guess.
    Drag.
    Blow.
    Calm.
    â€œHere,” said Vic, holding out an earbud.
    â€œYou’re offering an earbud,” I said.
    â€œI am.”
    â€œI thought that was just something people did in movies.”
    â€œAre you suggesting we’re in a movie?”
    â€œI wish.”
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhich movie do you wish we were in?” asked Vic.
    I’d seen other people—usually in coffee shops, or that recently defunct outdoor café on Henley—speak to one another with this kind of fluid banter, as if the conversation had been all mapped out and memorized before the involved parties opened their mouths. I’d even been part of a few, but only with Coco—until now.
    â€œ
Apollo 13
,” I said.
    â€œ
Apollo 13
.”
    â€œSure. Tom Hanks in space. What, you’re too good for Tom Hanks in space?”
    â€œThings go horribly wrong for Tom Hanks in space if I remember correctly. Come to think of it, things go horribly wrong for Tom Hanks on deserted islands, too.”
    â€œAu contraire,” I said, “Tom Hanks survives both space and islands.”
    â€œSurvival. That’s your aspiration?”
    â€œYou bet your ass. Anyway, I love space.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” asked Vic.
    â€œI mean, I love space. Black holes and dwarf planets and stars that faded to nothing decades ago but we can still see them—all that shit. Can’t get enough.”
    Drag.
    Blow.
    Calm.
    â€œThat’s actually a common misconception,” said Vic.
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œThe idea that we’re looking at stars in the sky that have already died and faded.”
    â€œNo, I’m pretty sure it’s true. Because of the light-years, I mean—if a star died, we wouldn’t know for, like, decades I think.”
    Vic was quiet, but sort of shook his head in that way people do when they’ve got more to say—or worse, when they know they’re right and you’re wrong.
    â€œOkay,
Spoils
,” I said. “Out with it.”
    â€œIt’s just—most stars live for millions and millions of years. We live for eighty, give or take, and can only see around five thousand stars with the naked eye. The odds that one of them dies during my lifetime are pretty minuscule. Possible, I guess. But highly improbable.”
    Drag.
    Blow.
    Calm.
    â€œSo I’m trying to decide if you’re a show-off or a nerd or both,” I said.
    â€œNah, I just like numbers. Anyway, what do you think?”
    â€œHonestly, I forget what we were even talking about.”
    He held up the earbud again. “Maybe it’s something people do in real life too.”
    It was clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I sighed, snuffed out my cigarette, and took the earbud. “What are we listening to?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    And he was right. I did see.
    To say the song was beautiful was like saying the sun was hot, or the fish was wet, or a billion was a lot. It was opera, I think, or something like it, a duet, two ladies, both singing their hearts out, and even though it was in a foreign language, I almost cried because there was just something so familiar about their voices, like they understood my own personal sorrow on a molecular level.
    When it was over, I handed the earbud back and was about to ask him what the song was called when he said, “I think we’re being watched.”
    A dozen yards away a pair of piercing eyes ducked behind a high snow embankment. A second later they reappeared, trained on Vic.
    â€œThat’s just Zuz.” I smiled a little, wondering how long he’d been lying on his stomach in the snow. “He does that.”
    â€œDoes what?” asked Vic.
    â€œHe’s