# **The Moon checks its shoes at the cloakroom**

At dawn, the clocks melted into the puddles, while a staircase sprouted beneath the sea.
The fish, very punctual, announced the opening of an extra Sunday.

In Montreuil-les-Brumes, a giant umbrella bloomed last night in the middle of Market Square. Its ribs, covered with little windows, looked onto rooms where one could hear the silence grow. At the top, the Moon had left its shoes: two velvet ankle boots full of blue sand.

Residents gathered with empty cups, hoping to catch a bit of sky in them. “At noon, I saw my reflection take the bus without me,” says Marceline Poussière, a baker and owner of a canary that recites the tide tables. “Since then, my mirror addresses me formally.”

A watchmaker who came to examine the soft watches discovered that they all showed teatime, except for one, which was beating like a heart beneath a tablecloth. He set it down near the umbrella; at once, a rain of little staircases began to fall upward.

The town hall — a brioche-built edifice, according to witnesses — recommends walking slowly and not waking the benches. This evening, if the wind finds its hat again, the square should turn into a boat and leave the village without warning anyone.