I've had a headache for two days now, and the dance music in the store where I am buying tank tops is so loud it makes me dizzy. In the dressing room the lighting is bad and my lipstick is the wrong color, for me or, in this light, for any living thing.

In the train everything seems weird. There is an overpowering smell of sweat, but from whom? It's not clear. On my left, a girl lies with her head on another girl's (sister? friend?) shoulder, eyes shut. She seems exhausted. After a while she leans over and puts her head in her friend's lap. The friend, helpfully, sets about re-tying the sleeping girl's nylon headscarf. It's ill-advised; she ties it too tight and it slides off. Watching this makes my head hurt more.

Across from me a girl with a nose ring reads The Secret Life of Plants. She looks amazed. A button on her backpack says "Save the Rain Forest" which makes sense, given all those plants and their secret lives. Nearby a couple holds hands. She has dirt-colored jeans and braces, he looks vacuous and too old for her. My god, are we STILL on the train? What IS that smell?

Out on the platform I am grateful for air. The trick is to forget about the pain and when I remember to look for it, it'll be gone. I call home on my cell phone. As I speak, the phone blurts back to me a tiny echo of everything I say, a phantom transmission of myself, from a parallel universe that is headache free.