case of the woman of weird in Paris and London

.......................................................................................

Along the Champs Elysee on a cold damp February morning a puppet in his mid-thirties finds himself turning into an arcade that is clean and quiet and unpopulated.


Soon after he has walked along with eerie sounds grating his nerves, he sees in one of the many open but unstaffed shops this strange figure of femininity. She transmits a thought: You will dream of me for a month.


Back in London the puppet does indeed do so. Each night he sweats and becomes entangled sorely in his own strings. Then he goes through an arcade in Piccadilly and sees her again. This time she transmits no thoughts. But a Hitchcockian stranger stands behind the puppet and says:"Keep writing about replication...or die!"


The young and tiny puppet is too frightened to turn around to see the evil character only whose reflection he has seen in the mirror behind the cryptic figurine. Scared, the puppet speeds away and finds himself on the Westbound platform of Victoria station being chased by police-puppets. They catch him. They tell him:"The Hitchcockian says,'Dye your shirt the colour of the figurine woman's coat to gain the limelight.'"

The puppet replies:"I have no fear of the Hitchcockian. It is the Cobbler of Barnes Bridge who is terrifying me." The police-puppets laugh and vanish into the crowd.

IN THE DARK OF EERIE NIGHT IN DREAMS THOU SHALT SWEAT

---