Nesbitt panted heavily as he pulled the train door closed behind him. Cursing softly, he squashed his bulk into the only available seat in the carriage.

   He sat sweating into his sticky shirt as the creaky old train jerked out of the station, his listless gaze fixed on the streets that passed by outside the window.

   Nesbitt hated the sticky summer heat. It made him feel as if the city were sucking his life out through his skin.

   As the train limped along past the back of the station, he found himself wondering why the city was there at all.

   Was it the same one he had walked through yesterday?

   Sometimes it changed so fast, he was convinced that it wasn't.

   But if not here, then where was the city he had grown up in? This place had the same name and sat on the same site.

   Nesbitt was suddenly seized by the suspicion that the old city had died and an impostor had sprung up without anyone noticing but him.

   Names and places had stayed - the city had gone. Or perhaps it was hiding in the city he saw around him.

   Those black bin bags he glimpsed piled up down that alley could contain the remnants of yesterday's city. The real city. A city condensed into dust enough to fill up hundreds of bin bags, ready to be hauled off to the rubbish dump.

   Did anyone else suspect the truth? Looking around at his fellow passengers, he doubted it.

   Although it seemed impossible, the heat seemed to close in around Nesbitt even more. Exhausted by his mental exertions and, despite his discomfort, he soon nodded off.

   He dreamed darkly of a crowded train stuffed with crushing heat.

   Fellow passengers drenched in sweat surrounded him, though he was still cool enough.

   The others turned their eyes to him as thick grease dripped from their skins. The woman sitting next to him sagged onto his shoulders. He looked round to her as everyone else in the carriage melted around him.

   He was trapped in a prison of melted,waxy flesh.

   Nesbitt started awake in a sweaty, uncomfortable heap. A group of passengers stood unsteadily, looking down at him in the carriage's flickering neon.

   He found his tongue stuck to the inside of his mouth. Feeling the train lurch suddenly out of the false city, his limbs seemed too heavy to move.

   "Eeeeugh!," choked a woman, covering her mouth as the group gazed down at Nesbitt.