After her second-to-last flower was gone, the woman in white stood in a Y pose, arms up and somewhat behind her... partly, I suspected she was stretching. But it clearly announced a finale. One more girl came forward and put money in the jar, and the woman reached into her waistband and presented the girl with the last flower, which unlike the rest had a deep crimson center, though it was still fringed with white. She bent forward in a bow, and the crowd that remained started some subdued applause.

She hiked up her skirt and stepped down off the platform that had been buried under her skirts. The veil and wig came off, and underneath she had purple hair that belonged on a troll doll, all clumped into spikes. Without the frame of the wig, her face took on a definite shape and age. She'd transformed from a porcelain doll into one of the punk/goth kids that hangs out in the Pit. Most of the pedestrians began to disperse, but a few remained... wanting to talk to her, or wanting to see what happened next. All of a sudden the bench had turned into a stage-door entrance, with people wanting to come in but afraid to intrude. The quiet of the performance had become a self-conscious tension.

The unmasking continued. The girl in purple and white worked her way out of the train and we saw that she'd been standing on black plastic packing crates, which she proceeded to wind all the gauzy business into. She hiked her skirt up to one side, and I saw her black boots and leggings amid all the white. Everything went into the packing crates.

She was talking. A girl from the audience, I don't know if it was someone she knew already or not, was chatting with her. They talked fairly matter-of-factly as the whole costume and kit got coiled up into the crates for easy transport. The girl from the audience took one of the crates, the girl in white and black and purple took the other two, and they headed east.

afterwards...