And it was this directionlessness that deposited him in an area of the City that he'd never even known existed before. The exhilarating thrill of discovery as he looked about himself at the peculiar buildings and shops made him momentarily glad that his inattentiveness to the time had allowed him this opportunity to wander.

It was, true, an exceedingly strange array of buildings; the architecture styles seemed at once an amalgamation of Black Forest, Mediterranean, and Yucatan, yielding an entirely new look, the likes of which he couldn't place as having encountered before. The familiar arrangement of apartments above shops was put in practice here, but he noted in a small part of his mind that he had never seen windows quite like these: revealing very little of what was on the interior, and darkly reflecting back the street on which (he now noted) he was the sole occupant.

This was not as odd as it might appear, he reasoned, as it was early on a Sunday (he checked his watch to make sure he still had time to kill: he did, and plenty of it). This early hour also accounted for, he presumed, the fact that most of the stores seemed closed. He looked in the windows of a few to try and determine what it was that they had sold, but could only make out a few vague items that were close to the glass: statues, primarily, or peculiar-seeming furniture. He wandered down the street, marveling at the buildings and the odd feeling he was soaking in from the sense of the place; until at last he found, on a corner some three blocks down, the open door of a small café, and heard the strains of a peculiar music from within. This reminded him that he hadn't had time (or so he had thought) for breakfast that morning, and so he went inside.

Expecting the smell of coffee and baked items (he could really go for some fresh bread, he thought idly), he was surprised to find the odor of the sea assailing his nose. His eyes had yet to adjust to the change of lighting conditions, but now he could hear (or thought he could) faint waves, as if the surf were contained in the back room. When at last his sight had acclimated itself (and, as is naturally human, thus overrode the senses of hearing and smell), he found himself facing the man who must have been the proprietor. This man was little more than a skeleton, so old did he appear to be; and his skin hung off of his frame and his mouth puckered in on itself, as mouths do when their vintage is far in the distant past. He wore an odd cap on his head, and his eyes were a very deep black and looked tinged with regret and sadness.

A wrinkled, bony hand was laid lightly on the counter, and the mouth spoke with a frail veneer that didn't quite hide the unnervingly strong (surprisingly strong) core from which it emanated.

"Ye had to go wanderin', didn't ye?" said the voice, a resigned decrying of the situation and, by extension, the world as a whole. And then the true nature of the shop resolved itself into sight.

And that, as they say, was that.
G6b(4)