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"Have you looked?" Cleo asks, and then, before he can get smart with her, clarifies: "At the future, I mean. To see what happens."
They're sitting on the ramparts of Hohenzollern, shoulder to shoulder. Overhead, the moon sits in the sky, fat and overripe, blaring white light down on them.
"What would be the fun in that?" Joe asks back. "I mean, you wouldn't want to know exactly how many more minutes we'll spend sitting out here tonight, would you? That would spoil the moment."
There are eyes, outlined in green, drifting in the air around them like fireflies. Cleo rolls their own, pokes at the nearest disembodied pupil. "The world's ending, Joe."
"Some may say that!" Joe concedes brightly. "Personally, I'm trying to take a more 'glass half full' approach."
"You still haven't answered my question," Cleo says, choosing an eye at random and staring at it pointedly, because he doesn't get to deflect that easily.
"Oh, I make a point of never looking forwards," Joe says. "And only backwards if I'm trying to remember if I left the stove on."
Cleo props a fist beneath their chin, glances over at where he would be if he had a proper form. They can sort of catch the outline of him, the green-black shadow of where a person would be. "It doesn't scare you, then? Not knowing what'll happen?"
"Sure it does," he agrees easily. "I'm actually cosmically terrified, at present! But think about it. If I don't know what's coming next, then anything could happen. Isn't that wonderful?"
Cleo hums, looks up. The moon hangs overhead like a sword, wiping out the sky, casting the whole world in silver and black. "Suppose you've got a point."