Deliriously tired, he threaded through the tunnels. There was no time to go home for fresh clothes and coffee. City Hall expected him. He knocked an old goat off balance and stuttered a sorry. He waited for an R train, which was delayed because of an earlier incident. The one that finally heaved up to the platform was stuffed to the gills. He shoved on with more apologies. The conductor barked at everyone to stand clear. Beneath his legs, a flock of pigeons gathered in; he locked his knees and cast his gaze downward.

Alfonzo wondered how he was supposed to get through this new day after everything. But then, what was this everything? He’d visited an old love and her friends, they’d talked feelings and politics, and then he’d had a dream. He was just one random alpaca whose life, as far as he knew, was still normal. Normal in its constraints. The change was within.

He surfaced finally at City Hall Station. A light snow had started falling askew from the matte gray clouds. At the top of the stairs, Alfonzo made eye contact with an old llama who wore the same judgmental expression as his father. Luis’s voice rang in his mind’s ear. Say whatever you want to friends. Transcend on the weekend with drinks and song. Attend protests and dream lucidly every night. Do whatever you want, but do it on your own time. No matter what, make sure you’re where you’re paid to be come Monday morning. You’ve got to be responsible.

Dark-coated animals circled the empty fountain. Their footprints wrote lines across the snowy paving stones. Among them was an alpaca with her scarf knotted the way Alfonzo’s mother used to do hers. These were workers who behaved themselves, and here he was, among them.

But for what? he argued with his inner father. Have I come dutifully to be fired? If I’m lucky, I’ve come to be shuffled to another basement office, to yet another windowless room where I’ll live in fear of leaks and mold and the ceiling’s collapse. I come to watch the slow damp rot the records of our existence. Am I an animal who does what I’m told out of fear? You do your job, his inner father hummed. The big picture is above your pay grade. You behave yourself so you’ll have a home to dream in.

All around him, animals disappeared. They were there moving along, clear to him one instant, then a door opened and they were gone, swallowed by an office tower.

Humming, Alfonzo turned away from City Hall. Dad, he reassured his mental father, you’re not my enemy. You don’t have to be afraid. He would be responsible soon, he promised, but in a new way. Work wasn’t working like it should, so the worker must change.

Get a coffee, Alfonzo soothed himself. Survive the day.