At 8:02 a.m., a comma as tall as a bus came to rest in the middle of the avenue, cutting the morning sentence mid-stride.
Our reporter, himself punctuated with incredulity, tried to measure the interval.
It shines a little — metal? rain? collective imagination? — and, honestly, this article isn’t sure what it’s made of. It only knows that a crowd has gathered, that the sidewalks are holding their breath, and that this lede looks crazy because it is. At this stage, we should be providing numbers; instead, we’re providing a pause, which, for a comma, amounts to a public service.
“I came so the city can breathe,” declared the Comma before settling between two crosswalks. This quote, entirely unverifiable and fiercely accurate in its absurdity, was relayed to us by a witness who did not give a name but signed with a discreet sigh. Motorists, for their part, swear they can hear subordinate clauses forming in their rearview mirrors.
You read, you blink; our photographer frames a silence. Shopkeepers are adapting their hours to the ambient breathing; the bakery, for instance, opens “when the sentence resumes,” which happens and then does not happen, as befits grammatical phenomena. It is tempting to conclude, but the layout insists on prolonging the suspension: let’s admit it, this front page loves to put on airs of a comma.
Rest assured, the city will finish its sentence. We will then update this article at the next hour — which, for the moment, politely refuses to arrive until the reader has caught their breath.
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