Parley Voo

Footsteps fell on deaf ears; cobblestone ears slick with recent rain, undrained and consequently clogged. Somebody was pacing back and forth in Rue Cranium again, top hat and tails, folded umbrella employed as a walking stick, waiting for the lamplighter. But he stops suddenly in front of Chez Thought, regarding its forbidding facade with suspicion. Behind this big cerebellum of a building is the long and winding Avenue Proust leading to the tree-lined Boulevard de Blanchot, an upscale neighborhood where pompous opinions of oneself peer from behind net curtains at callow inspirations playing in the street. You could give the man in top hat and tails directions, chapter and verse, but he'd probably get lost. Unfortunately the map is the territory here, and the map is falling to pieces.