Nicole felt the word home land like a small, cold stone in her stomach. Because the truth was, she didn’t have one. Not really. The apartment she rented was full of costumes and scripts and mirrors. She slept in hotel rooms half the year. The only consistent thing about Nicole Doshi was her name on a poster.
They talked for three hours. Or rather, Sybil talked, and Nicole listened. Sybil spoke in fragments. One moment she was a child in Ohio, hiding from a father who threw clocks. The next, she was a medical student in London, cutting into a cadaver and realizing she felt nothing. Then a painter in Mexico City, then a taxi driver in Cairo. Not past lives. Parallel lives. All of them happening now. nicole doshi sybil a
“Excuse me?” Nicole said.
Nicole realized what had happened. By watching them, recording them, turning their survival into art, she had fed something dangerous. The selves had always existed, but they had never performed for anyone before. Now they were competing for the spotlight. Nicole felt the word home land like a
And somewhere, in a quiet studio apartment across town, a woman with nine faces opened her eyes and began to laugh—in a voice that sounded, just for a moment, exactly like Nicole’s. The apartment she rented was full of costumes