We have checked three times: this article is aware of its own delirium and persists nonetheless.

Make yourselves comfortable; reality will pretend to believe it for the span of these few columns.

The City Loses Its Shadow, Finds It Under a Rug

This morning, at exactly ten o’clock (or thereabouts—the shadow was holding the clock), the city discovered itself as crisp as a mistake: no outline at the feet of passersby, benches, or even the kiosk that prints these words. The editor, who is also this paragraph, confirms that he finds it absurd; but the facts—or what passes for them—insist with the gravity of an unlit lamppost. We did try to blame a cloud, but the cloud refused the interview, which helps no one, least of all syntax.

The trail brightened in a downtown department store, carpet aisle 12, where sales clerks discovered, rolled between two kilims, a darkness of urban shape: facades at a 1:1 scale, trees in black lace, rooftops scalloped by pigeons, and a velvet silence. “We lifted a kilim and I saw the silhouette of the bridges and roofs pressed there, like a postcard that had taken a hit of night,” recounts Lucie M., head of the carpet department, surprised to be quoted about a phenomenon with neither label nor barcode. The article, mindful of order, notes that it did not ask for a discount.

Summoned in haste, watchmakers, gardeners, and poets debated the protocol for restoring it to the light. The first proposed setting noon to 11:59 to coax the escape; the second recommended watering “lightly, at the feet of things”; the third spoke in low voices. At this point, the story hesitates between precision and confession: it is embroidering. But if you had seen that shadow, perfectly polished by anonymous footsteps, you too would have taken notes with a very dark pencil.

Finally, a spotlight, the patience of a cat, and a broom (to smooth the creases of dusk) were enough: the city put its shadow back on the way one puts a coat back on after a compliment. The passersby, as a precaution, avoided walking too fast, for fear of wrinkling the perspective: it’s touching, says the article, which blushes at being only a printed rectangle. A promise is made to keep an eye on the rugs: you never know what the light misplaces when it blinks.