Boyd and Topher in “Gray Hour”

They're eating lunch.

They're eating lunch together, man friend. The same three. Even the same table. They're grouping.

Are you saying they remember each other?

No, no, no. The wipes are clean. This goes deeper than memory, into instinctual survival patterns. Flocking. A whole mess of sparrows turning on a dime, salmon trucking upstream. This isn't a book club, man friend, this is the herd.

They're not bison, Topher.

They're a little bit bison.

They didn't used to be.

They volunteered for this.

So we're told.