In the heart of the city, the steeple’s shadow did not report for duty at noon.
Passersby, dazzled, tell of a light that refuses all punctuation.
At the stroke of twelve, no one. Nothing. The paving stones had been waiting for the steeple’s customary silhouette to carve the square into reassuring geometry; it simply didn’t show up. The children squinted, the shop windows pleated their reflections, and this first paragraph, aware of existing to the left of a margin too white, wonders whether it isn’t embellishing an absence the way one folds a tablecloth that’s too big.
“I saw it slip behind a bench, then it turned back like a shy dress, and poof, nothing,” says Colette Doux, supposed keeper of the clock’s keys and manifestly keeper of her imagination. Others speak of a hole of light, a slippage in the schedule, a noon prank: this newspaper, which clings to its reputation for seriousness at least for the length of this line, nevertheless notes that there is no official protocol for summoning a shadow to appear.
We attempted an interview: impossible to obtain a comment from a silhouette that does not show, and difficult, for a printed article, to rise from its column without wrinkling the typography. Failing that, this second paragraph confirms that it knows it is absurd and looks you straight in the letters, while avoiding crying scandal — for crying scandal disturbs the neighbors between the lines.
While awaiting the return of the faithful absentee, the city moves forward by sight and backs away from the hypothetical shadow. If you come across a bell-shaped coolness without a bell, please return it to the next page: we promise to publish a correction in full sunlight, with a small note of apology and a photo that will not step out of its frame (out of respect for the margins).
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