The tubeway was not in its usual configuration. As usual, I had walked down from the F train platform through the vaulted enclosure of the spaceport trains to the lowest level express platform leading to the city. Something had been moved. The stretch of old slightly oily maglev had been twisted perhaps two degrees counterclockwise looking down from above. Yes, who would notice such a minor detail? Unfortunately, I would. Unfortunate since it would be yet one more thing only I would notice. I could tell no one. I wasn’t afraid of being labeled crazy or eccentric; people already thought I was. I just could not break someone else by telling them the truth. The constantly shifting geometries and realities of the city could only be mine to know. That was until the approaching train arrived. Or more specifically what (or who?) was on the train.
For maybe one or two days a year the advertisements covering everything in the station would be taken down. I am not sure why. Did advertisers just run out of money? Removing the ads revealed something we rarely speak of these days. Yes, we have the most perfect society ever to exist. No superlative can ever enhance our state of perfection, but there was a day that others walked among us. Now why did the authorities allow the past to interject in the present so jarringly? Memories have faded, or simply have been removed, but just like the slight turn of the maglev tracks I remember.
“Excuse me, sir?” I could hear the voice. It could not be for me. “Sir? Did you drop this?” Drop what? What did I have? Not much. And there it was.
Like the maglev tunnels of the city, my mind is like an endless digression. I travel one line, and it connects into another. What train is this? I am so lost some days I am suddenly above ground, the end of the line, the ocean, the city’s bridges barely visible in the fog.