The Stretched Heads are happy, sitting there in a row. They are like in a VIP section. We stand in front of them and look down at them, wondering at their good fortune and the ease with which they read a magazine and hold a bag simultaneously.
Sometimes a place comes up for one of them, it is taken quickly. The others do not notice. Why should they care? Nothing will change for them. It is only for the observer that the row of Stretched Heads changes. A double-barrelled mane with a thick violet middle becomes two conjoined bald blobs, with a meaty tubular join. Like the shiny stretched neck of a brass instrument.
It is always another Stretched Head who takes their place. They know their place; we know ours.
What are they thinking about, the Stretched Heads? What fabulous or frightening machinations keep the top and the bottom together? Do they have to care for each head differently? 90 degree spin for one, hand wash for the other?
Do the Stretched Heads see themselves for what they are? Superior beings sent to this earth to sit rather than stand, perfect double-brains destined to remind the rest of us of our single-minded cloddishness? Or does each have a different image of himself, according to a multitude of factors, just like us round heads?
Do the Stretched Heads dream two dreams? Do they need two psychiatrists; are they paid twice as much?
Do the Stretched Heads, like me, become mad with the fear of death on entering the underground station? That tomb, that place from whence it is impossible to escape by the merit of your own arms, legs, or head?
They do not seem to. Look at their superior skulls, built to withstand blasts. They lose one end of it, there is still the other.
Because I have too much time, because I am depressed and unwilling to fill my life other than with fears and worst-case scenarios, and perhaps because of the formation of my head, I am easily overwhelmed by the randomness of life, of being in a certain place at a certain time. Yet I nor anyone I know have been in any random incident involving loss of life. What must those people be thinking? Those people must feel the guidelines of life as slack as a coil of rope on the ground.
Look at the Stretcheds, so content-head! Look at this one, smiling at his phone! And that one, ogling the pretty girls who swing too close. Whilst all we can do is stare down at our feet, wondering how they came to be where they are today. So settled. We picture their lives at home, calm as white leather. From the front they appear like us. But looming up behind them, to remind us of exactly who we are dealing with, the Stretched Heads. At once as much part of their anatomy as their slack-muscled glutes in the rest position on their warm seats. But also separate entities entirely. A ghost of their superiority, following them around like meaty minders.
Once, I was so delighted by a Stretched that I lost myself completely. It was a Stretched with a hat. Not too extraordinary in itself, but the hat was a sort of paper crown. It made the Stretched look like a Christmas cracker! I pointed it to a fellow round in excitement. I admit I had lost myself in the moment. She was horrified. She went bright red and looked away. To treat a Stretched like an animal in a zoo!, she was saying with the mortified tilt of her own small, globular cranium.
There is usually something brewing amongst the round heads. It will always be us tutting and shaking our heads and jostling like livestock when too many others try to board the tubular. It is never a Stretched who expresses such unkind dissatisfaction, such frustration with their fellow travellers. They are too composed, and they are usually busy reading something anyway. Fully engaging their two minds.
For they are superior, yes, in every way. The more I watch their reflection in the glass window, see the undulating symmetry of two brains packed into one packet, the more I am sure.
I allow myself to daydream about the day I become a Stretched Head, as if such a thing were possible. I would coiff top and bottom differently I think; I would become a real trail-blazer. I would encourage the round heads to live well together and would deign to speak to them; I might become their leader. I would smile up from my seat and meet the gaze of those who look down. I would enjoy my life and not think incessantly of the blast that might hurl me down the carriage like a bowling ball.
These tutting round heads, scowling at the unwanted newcomers who have just boarded the train, must not fear death like I do. One has to live squarely in the faith of his own immortality to be that determinedly unsympathetic to others. And anyway, if you thought about it, you'd realise that more bodies = more protection from any eventual blasts, and welcome them on board in droves.
Most of the time I live in dread.
For we are both round heads and nothing will save us when the time comes. Like others of our kind, we fear imminent and painful persecution. We cannot believe the worst has not already happened to us. We are programmed to sniff out doom. Then when it happens, there is resignation – satisfaction? - in the place of revolt.
But some days I think it wouldn't be so bad. To free my brains from this spherical cell; to let them escape from this rabid roundhouse and take whatever form they liked.
When I am in that mood, there is a solution to everything.
But generally, of course, there is no solution to anything. It must be something to do with having only one small, round head. The thoughts go round and round in circles. As I watch the Stretcheds in the reflection of the tube windows, I consider their tranquilness. I realise that their thoughts must be starting in one of their heads, then travelling up the middle, at which point they are categorised and sorted, like post being filtered by machines, or wheat being separated from chaff. Then in the second head, each thought goes to the correct part of the second brain, and is turned into decision, opinion, action, what have you. More space, more machinery: more sense. I wonder how many other round heads have realised this. Probably not many. Perhaps I am a Stretched in the making!
One day there is a jostle in the carriage. One Stretched wants to sit down but so does another. At least I assume they are Stretcheds because they seem sure of their right to be seated. And then someone motions to me, or to be precise, to my stomach. It's true that I am pregnant, but I am carrying no Stretched! Do they not realise that a round cannot sit? Block heads! I want to shout, but of course I don't, because it is handed from round mother to round child that all communication towards Stretcheds in the tubular should be. So I gesture no. But the two become quite insistent; quite aggressive. I have no choice but to say, loudly: 'That is for Stretched Heads only'. They looked embarrassed. They know I shouldn't have had to say it. But they let me stand then, and one of them sits down; a Stretched of course.
Oh what wouldn't I do if I was a Stretched Head?
I would dream two dreams at a time!
Thoughts such as these must have been going around and around my mind like pin balls when one day I saw a sight that made me want to murder everyone in my path, no matter the shape of their skull.
Door Clutchers.
For that's what I call them, these simpleton rounds who insist on blocking the doors; these goggle-eyed gatekeepers of an imaginary kingdom, mindless trolls minding the most measly territory.
Rejected rounds stood dejected on the platform, staring in at us as if we were their last hope of salvation from a very cold and dangerous place.
A section of my coconut-shaped cranium cracked in rage. I shouted, as if I had been instructed to do so by a higher power:
I'LL BLOW YOU ALL UP!
Of course, panic ensued. Cretin rounds brayed and stamped in a cloddish, confused attempt to exit the carriage. As they left I tried to signal to the rounds on the platform that it was a ruse for their benefit and they should enter the train with every sense of right. But they backed away from me with such horror that one even fell over onto her young. A few Stretcheds seemed to have been infected with the general chaos and began to alight the train. I went to tell the upset Stretcheds to sit down, that I was only sick and tired of the thoughtless antics of my kind, but they kept their heads down and would not listen to me.
One woman however did a very strange thing. With a caring expression, she got up from her seat and motioned me to sit in it.
In my dazed mind I wondered for a few moments if my outburst had won me a new status. Had I been silently elected, as the scuffle was happening, to join the elite? I immediately thought - how could I continue to be the mate of a round? I would have to break the news to him tonight. He would be sad but presumably happy for me. I was bound for bigger and better things. I would be the mediator, the olive branch, between Stretcheds and Rounds. People would learn from each other and the race would grow great and generous.
I looked around. Stretcheds to the right and left of me, quietly and calmly reading. They were too polite to draw attention to the fact that a round sat amongst them, obviously: another mark of their preferable DNA. I hoped I could absorb some of their greatness, sop up some of their superior chemistry, their spiritual dominion, through the seat.
For in three stops I would go back to being a round, and that would have to be OK.
