The year is 1955. The location is a blur of dust and impossible light, a few hours’ drive from the nearest highway that actually appears on any map. The town is called Asteroid City, population 87, and its sole reason for existing is a massive, asymmetrical crater that yawns open at its center like a fossilized wound. A sign, bleached by the sun and peppered with buckshot, reads: "ASTEROID CITY: Population 87. You’d Think We’d Be More Humble."

The first creature materialized beside it with a soft pop of displaced air. It reached out its three-fingered hand. The smaller one took it. They stood together in the crater, two impossible beings under a sky full of stars that were, for the first time all night, exactly where they were supposed to be.

He laughed. It was a dry, broken sound. "I've been pretending for so long, I don't remember the real lines." Asteroid City

The sun climbed higher. The diner served burnt coffee and cherry pie. The children built a new diorama—not of the moon, not of Mars, but of the crater itself, with two tiny figures made of clay standing at its center, holding hands.

Midge found him there. She sat down beside him, her notebook open. The year is 1955