There was an avenue that died.
Its name had been the Avenue of the Grand and Gaudy Grotesques, so named for a now-defunct theater that made its fame exhibiting displays to shock the senses. Numerous other places of business were to be found there, of course - the Sugar Effrontery, the Museum of Glass Heads, the Surprised Prophet’s Café, and the little-known but influential Inconvenient Baubles. But the theater was the crown in which individual jewels merely rested.
One did not place oneself in the care of a thoroughfare with such a commanding name without accepting that it came with certain expectations. Casual curiosity about the Theater was not to be indulged; only those with a minimum of morbid appetite should see the sights they’d set their heart upon seeing. Thus did the avenue cast itself as the curator, not of grotesques, but of visitors. The milquetoast were steered toward less sinful venues. The determined were rewarded.
At length the theater itself closed its doors.
Visitors contented themselves with the other pleasures to be found along the avenue, and the shopkeepers and businessfolk answered their questions. Why did it close, for example? Perhaps the common grotesques of the Actuality had long since eclipsed even its imaginative creation. Possibly the owners had entered into an awful debt for new curiosities, which mere mortals would be hard pressed to repay. Conceivably someone or something had found offense at a display.
The stories proliferated, but the avenue grieved.
In time, visitors noticed that the avenue itself had died. One could walk a certain number of steps in a certain direction and reliably arrive at the same destination. The layout of the shops became a pedestrian certainty.
What was to be done? Architects were consulted. The Order of Makers were summoned. In the end, the answer was the same: “the end comes for us all”.
A new avenue is being constructed. It is called the Avenue of the Trenchant Turnabout. It is not being constructed over the corpse of the Avenue of the Grand and Gaudy Grotesques - oh no, that would be disrespectful. Instead, the Trenchant Turnabout is to be the child and the monument of the deceased avenue.
Will the child live up to its parent’s reputation? Will a new destination anchor the avenue, as the theater of old had done? Time will tell. What is certain is that even though the end comes for us all, one road always leads to another one.