I was sitting on a train
I didn’t have my headphones so
I was listening to the announcements
The woman’s voice is butter light but
A little bit patronising:
“If you have an Opal card, please remember to tap-off”
Because what else am I going to do to get through the turnstile?
I’m too short to jump it
And I am not a ghost

And then I start thinking of her,
The woman who gave her voice to a train
If she can still use it anymore
If it annoys her when she hears it on her way to work
If she’s changed it like an embarrassing name or
Moved to a different state?
And do they have different voices in
Melbourne or Brisbane or Tasmania?

And what about the bloke
Who gave his voice to the station?
“Please be advised, smoking is not permitted on the platform”
Which is a ****** ‘cos I could really do with a smoke.

But then again what if
Train Woman and Station Man aren’t real?
What if they were made by a computer program?
And if so,
Did someone have to give their voice to a computer?

But that’s just crazy –
It would mean the robots are coming and
We’d all be gonskies
If they ever learn to think what we don’t tell them.

But they kind of already do, right?
Don’t know the science of it really but
I think therefore I am
Someone in history says this, but they’re wrong
I am therefore I think
Or I am, but don’t think, but am anyway

And Train Woman’s voice is here, right?
It’s speaking to us, but is a thing that is intangible
Still a thing?

And this is why I need to remember headphones –
I’ve missed my stop.