I lock my car and shove my keys into the pocket of my big coat. The parking garage is nearly full this morning, so I have to use the elevator to get down to the exit. The moment the doors slide open, there is a woman waiting for me. She is wearing my face.
I watch my expression contort in surprise and then settle into relief. My makeup, I note with some pleasure, is impeccable today. “Please,” she says, thrusting a fistful of flyers at me, “can you help me?”
I lock my car and shove my keys into the pocket of my big coat. Outside the parking garage, the three-block walk to the office building where I work is plastered with flyers of a lost corgi. Across the street, standing at the corner of a busy intersection, an old man is handing out long-stem pink roses from a paper bag. I check my watch and decide to stop in at the corner coffee shop.
“I’m sorry to bother you, miss, but if it’s not too much trouble, could you get me a black coffee? Just a black coffee, miss.” The person who has taken my face today speaks nothing like me. I am huddled just outside the entrance, hands deep in the pockets of my big coat. I wonder how long I have been there like that, asking strangers for a little warmth. I give myself