Our story begins in a forlorn alleyway, the long passage lying self-righteously between a Laundromat and a seemingly authentic New-York style Chinese restaurant stretches out into an apparently empty street. Two silhouettes are standing at the end of the lane with a consistent stream of cigarette smoke rising from the only highlighted shadow in sight. The red glow of the butt lights up again, and the shorter one of the duo lets out a low cough. The sinister alley is like an old black and white film complete with trench coats and a Humphrey Bogart hat and that old car that nobody quite remembers the model name. By now, you’ve made the assumption that the scene taking place is happening on our glorious planet Earth, (which is a healthy assumption, although not entirely correct) A taxi flashes by the alleyway entrance and the two huddled smokers put out their butts and shuffle out towards the street.

A streetlight flickers. Another unsuccessful attempt to signal any life form, here or beyond, willing to listen to its saga of a miserable and meaningless existence. The melancholy lamppost stands there day after day, brought into subsistence for the sole unappreciated function of brightening the day for other objects not nearly as dejected as itself. To share a simple wish with the underprivileged mailbox next door for the undervalued ability of straightforward movement. Even an inch to change the perception of reality for a richly deserved forty-five minutes would be more than cherished before the circuit board conscious in his head informs him that the time has come once again for the bulb in his brain to light the streets for the remainder of the evening. But then again, self-pity isn’t so gratifying for a lamppost when the realization comes that you are one of over two-hundred exact copies of the same over-sentimental, manic-depressed streetlight on the same street. Not to mention that rumor that eventually reaches the ear of every streetlight that around the corner there are thousands, if not millions more streetlights, all identical in shape and size and uniformly hopeless.

Back on the dimly lit street corner, (dimly lit streetlights are an indication of the unvarying mood of the lamppost species, hence nearly all streetlights in stories being described as “dimly lit”) the strangers stepped out onto the damp and cracked sidewalk with a clack of dress shoes to pavement. A mole hobbles hurriedly by, and tips his size altered (moles heads are far smaller than our own) imitation bowler hat slightly as if to acknowledge presence, but at the same time not appear absolutely friendly. Moles are disreputable acquaintances, not very reliable friends, but excellent associates. You might find conversation with a mole to lead you back to the same place over and over again, and so many creatures find them annoying, offensive, and unpopular. Once more, I fear that you might have made another assumption pertaining to the story. Although it may seem a human-like World, in fact the World this story takes place in is not a “Human World” at all, though there are humans on it. For example, this mole would not appear to you as an ordinary mole might on our “Human World”. Instead of pitter patter of small furry feet, this mole hurries by with a click clack of artificial alligator skin shoes. (Artificial of course, I presume you might know already that moles are infamous for their penny-pinching mind-set.) The swish-swash of a brown and mustard yellow suit coat reaches your ears just as the polite mole captures a considerably faded blue handkerchief from his suit pocket (which has a rather outsized hole that he doesn’t seem to notice) just in time to catch the sneeze and replace the handkerchief to its proper place of respite. Though, who’s to say where the proper place for a handkerchief is? I suppose the moles in this World would widely resemble that of an absent-minded and badly fashioned professor from our own World. Anyhow, the mole continued on his hurried path with papers under arm and day-old coffee in hand when he quite abruptly stopped and swung round to the two strangers.