Will Absent of Volition

I was travelling along on the Metrolink from Bury to Manchester, only to be pricked every few minutes by the feeling that something was wrong. It was like a voice in my head. What could it be? Then I realised: the voice was external. It was telling me that we would soon be arriving at Besses O'th Barn. But it didn't ring true somehow. And yet there we were, Besses O'th Barn station, just as announced. So what was wrong? And then it came again: "The next station will be Prestwich." A woman's voice, quite mellifluous. Factually true in what it conveyed, as the next station was, sure enough, Prestwich. So what was wrong? Why did I feel there was something amiss? And then it hit me. Omygod it's the multiverse! At the front of the tram I could see through the driver's window, dead ahead. There seemed to be two sets of tracks, running in parallel, one for each direction and yet... as we approached each station there must have been points, maybe invisible, maybe spectral, offering maybe two, maybe more, maybe an infinity of possible bifurcations! "The next station will be Heaton Park". Literally, the voice is keeping us on the straight and narrow! In the old days, before the multiverse, the voice would have said: "The next station IS Heaton Park."! The same uncanny phenomonenon occurred on the train from Manchester Piccadilly to Mcr Airport: "Then next station will be Heald Green". Thank goodness the voice imposed that outcome, otherwise I might have ended up missing my flight!