It was a foggy, cloudy day in March, and the clocks were striking eleven. The bell tolls rang throughout the city of London, sending vibrations up an down the rain-washed streets. Their sounds reached far and wide, penetrating the tightest nooks and crannies, and sending birds flying out of their trees in panic. It was these deafening blows that rang in the ear of one Peter Shilling, whose exposed ear just so happened to be resting upon the window of a bookshop just nine blocks from Big Ben. Having fallen asleep just twenty or so minutes before, the loud bangs of the famous clock tower proved a rude awakening for our humble shopkeeper.

Rubbing his ear, Peter sat up quickly and took a quick survey of the room, but luckily there was no one there to witness his dozing. Not that there usually were people in his shop. Peter was the owner of the smallest, dustiest, and most unnoticeable bookshop in all of London. Everyday he sat at his counter, cataloging books and calculating his increasingly foreboding finances, dreaming that one day he would be able to finally sell his lousy space and travel the world. But today was just like any other.

Peter turned his bleary eyes towards the window, and looked upon the bustling crowds of city goers. Heads bowing from the rain, they all looked straight forward or straight down, only caring for their destinations instead of what was surrounding them. The gray clouds swirled thickly above as they deposited their usual amount of daily precipitation, leaving the pavement shining and the shop windows blurry with droplets.

While watching the ever flowing stream of by passers, Peter noticed one person across the street, leaning against a light post with no obvious intent of moving. Squinting harder, Peter discerned that this stranger was a man wearing a long trench coat and a black bowler hat. Why was he standing there in the street, letting the rain soak him through? But with a harder glance, Peter realized that the man was looking at his shop, directly where Peter was sitting that moment with his face practically smooched against the glass of his window.

With this uncomfortable realization, Peter sat forward, embarrassed by the fact that he and this man were basically having a staring contest and he hadn't even realized it. He looked down at his disheveled desk, and had begun to shuffle some papers in an attempt to better organize the mess when the rusty bell that served to signal entering customers gave a soft tinkling. Peter looked up, and was startled by the presence of the man in the trench coat standing there before him, holding up what Peter could only presume to be some sort of glowing pen.“Who are you?” Peter asked.