The tiled room, merely a lump off the digestion tract of the city, shivers and bucks as if it were alive. We’re also alive. We jump back a little as the monster screeches towards and past us, lights flashing, skidding and screeching to a stop. People sway, and the doors slide open. We hate the subway. Or maybe we don’t. We get confused if we thing about it. We get on the train, or two of us do anyway. We don’t see each other but feel each other, somehow different among the puppets. Of course we’re puppets too, but we’re the same puppet, and we’re not supposed to be so close together. We are never supposed to meet.

We continue getting off, although we don’t know why. One of us has to go another six blocks, and the other doesn’t know how to read the subway maps and isn’t quite sure how far she needs to go. We are new to this city and subway station. Except for when we aren’t. It skids and bucks to a halt.

A dozen people stand to leave and we grab seats before the people coming have a chance to sit down. We are two seats apart, uncomfortably close. We take a seat between us, unaware of us. Three of us on the same train in the same place. This isn’t supposed to happen.

We make polite if painfully awkward conversation with ourselves. Every one of us present, three out of the eleven, feel the others. Feel each other’s lips move before we speak, like a forgotten dream. Words sneak into the conversation, out of place words, little experiments. Something seems very wrong. One of us is smiling. We are all happy except we aren’t. We’re scared but one of us understands. We- I- am in control now.