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It is there waiting for me by the time I hang up the phone, dress for work, and descend to the lobby of my apartment building—except for the light on its roof, white instead of the usual yellow, it is indistinguishable from the hundreds of other cabs that clog the city’s downtown streets each rush hour. The drivers of shrinkcabs usually make a gesture toward dressing a bit better than the usual cabbie, and as I slide into the backseat, I see that this one is wearing a starched shirt with silver cuff links—unfortunately, the intended effect is spoiled by a sleeve sporting scattered stains of ketchup and scrambled egg, the remnants of a breakfast sandwich whose foil wrapper lies discarded in the passenger seat.

I am going to try to tell a story now, and though I’ve made a life out of writing words, this is the first time I have told a story. There are no new stories in the world anymore, and no more storytellers. There is nothing left but the fragments of phrases that signaled their telling: once upon a time; why; and then; the end. But these phrases have lost their meanings through endless repetition, like everything else in this modern, mechanical age. And this machine age has no room for stories. These days we seek our pleasures out in single moments cast in amber, as if we have no desire to connect the future to the past.

I am lying supine on the ceiling, spread-eagled and afraid to move, and the satyr-child stands over me, sneering, showing stained and crooked teeth. “You oughta watch what you drink, friend,” he says. ” He reaches into his vest and, with a flourish, pulls out a gilt-edged envelope with a wax seal and drops it on my stomach. “An invitation,” the satyr-child says, and chuckles. ” ELEVEN And nightfall has come to the greeting-card works. The building is nearly silent. Most of the machines are resting, with only an occasional, isolated whir or hum in the darkened corridors.