This is a story about the loneliness that comes when you have lost yourself. Code-switching, which black people have to perform all the time, splits the self into pieces that are scattered about our worlds and sometimes lost among the fray. The pieces contain the heart of the individual, but once these fragments have been separated, they have the potential to take on lives of their own. They can wander off and become their own beings, distancing themselves from the original person, posing threat to their existence, and isolating them in a corner. Du Bois describes this experience in his theory of double-consciousness, but this story uses surreality to illustrate it in the most hyper-realist way. The women in this story are, quite literally, performing on the behalf of someone else. They grow resentful of having to be someone they are not; however, they quickly learn that their work is not nearly as lonely as the life of the woman they are living for. They see how this woman has lost herself entirely, that she needs them more than they need her, and that her despotic leadership has isolated her completely from them and the rest of world. In the end, they are brought together to witness how, in some twisted way, they have managed to build an intimate and unique community. On a darker note, they also realize that performance can be a drug — hiding behind façades, craving validation from the many eyes watching us can dull us and make it impossible to know our true selves, to free our true selves.