I beat on the subway doors, screaming your name. Melody, I say, Melody, baby, why you leaving me? I wish the people around you would point at me. They smack their gums and read their magazines. No one notices a thing. I want to brush the bangs out...

“The elephants will come back someday.” Gramps chewed on a stick as he stared at the far horizon where the terraformers were hard at work replacing the reddish purple lumps of native vegetation with the gray-green of earthly sagebrush...