I’m fairly happy on my way down the escalators. There’s something freeing about losing all your possessions from an old life. Even though I’ll have nothing to sleep on tonight, I feel light and optimistic. But, this feeling goes quickly. In the tunnels on the way to the southbound Northern line, I get the sense that there is someone following me. I haven’t seen a person acting suspiciously—the people behind me all look like they are just walking to catch the train—but I experience a sensation like my back is being physically poked by a person’s gaze. I used to think that my ability to sense things like this was another thing that set me apart from humans, but when I asked my mum about it as a teenager, she told me that it wasn’t and that it was something that was, in fact, from my human half. It’s something, she said, that most women can do—an extra sense that men don’t have, or else one they usually don’t need.

I turn down onto the platform and walk to the end, where there are a few people gathered. They’re women on a hen-do who are, I’m guessing from their accents, from Manchester. When the train arrives, I get on with them, so I’m hidden by their feather boas and balloons. While the tube is moving, though, I see the person, who I guess was the one following me, through the window leading into the next carriage. A man with a thin face, large eyes, and dark hair speckled with gray is looking at me. I scowl at him so that he knows I can see him, and so that he knows I am unhappy with him looking. But, he keeps staring and, eventually, the corners of his mouth turn up into a slight smile.

The missing suitcase feels like it means more now than it did earlier. Under this man’s gaze, I realize that I don’t really know who I am. My life in a sense begins tomorrow, when I start my internship at the gallery. Today, I’m still an embryo. My skin is thin and waterlogged; my eyes haven’t yet opened. The man’s gaze is like a spotlight. There’s nothing I have that proves I have existed and that I have an identity beyond my appearance. I shake my head and my big, black hair covers part of my face. I tuck my hands up into my sleeves like they are the heads of turtles sheltering in their shells. I turn to my left, away from the man, so I imagine that all he sees is the giant mass of my hair, although my body is still exposed. In that position, I close my eyes. When I open them again and turn around, the man is gone.