At dawn, lukewarm watches have begun to drip from the cornices, setting puddles of hours lapping at the feet of the lampposts.
The windowpanes, gloved in fog, have learned calligraphy and trace commas in the air where swallows perch.
Reports note that the sidewalks, seized by a sudden softness, have gone tender like summer fruit: each step leaves the imprint of a sigh. The lampposts, supported by dream-ivory crutches, lean in to listen to the murmur of the clock hands which, out of politeness, have given up pricking. Some swear they saw the sun suspended on golden pins, carefully laid out to dry its light above the domes.
Witnesses speak in velvet words, so as not to crease the morning. “I saw it without hearing it: the sidewalk yawned a sea, and my shadow learned to swim,” declares Mademoiselle Carafe, a seasonal watchmaker, wiping away a second that runs from her elbow. In the shop windows, gloves shake hands in secret, and shoes, seized by elegant panic, line up according to itineraries yet to come.
The houses, overtaken by the indiscretion of their inner drawers, half-open wooden flanks from which unwritten postcards escape: landscapes with levitating furniture, beaches folded into eighths, moustaches hooked to clouds so as not to get lost. The bell towers sneeze grains of noon; they harvest these sparks in jars to salt the meals of insomnia.
The newsroom recommends keeping dreams cool, in still-warm newsprint, and taking your thoughts for a walk at the end of a string so they don’t escape through the cracks in the sky. Finally, a reminder that any watch found melted on the public thoroughfare must be returned to the nearest puddle, politely, without sudden movements: today, time prefers to be served with a spoon.
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