A co-presentation of WNYC Studios and Night Fail presents.

You are listening to the orbiting human circus of the air. I'm going to hours after the radio show is over, the audience gone and the Eiffel Tower closed,

we take you to a small janitor's closet near the top of the tower, beneath the door

of which spills the light from a small lamp, and inside the janitor's closet a cot and on that cot lies Julian

janitor at the Eiffel Tower sleeping well he's not sleeping, actually. He's pretending to sleep. He's waiting for the great recidating

platypus of the north to come. This is of course the old folk tale that if when

ill one rests bravely a platypus will come and recite poetry while you sleep which will cause one to be healthy by the time one wakes up

it follows the nighttime around the world it waits till it's dark in the place.

In Paris for centuries children have believed when ill the platypus will come.

The kids fall asleep and they dream that the platypus has come, but it works.

Yes, the platypus is the Parisian cure to the common cold.

And they say when you wake up, if the platypus is still there, if you make a wish, whatever you wish for will come true.

But if it's just a dream, how can he still be there when you wake up?

Well, you know how like sometimes you wake up and whatever you're dreaming is still like lingering there, you know, like a mirage.

But if it's just a mirage, then how can the wish come true?

I guess in the same way that the kids get better from being sick.

In his own way, the janitor believes too.

All his life he's wanted to have that dream.

Well, yeah, I mean when you're a kid they tell you it'll only come if you behave.

I mean, what if your illness is that you always mess everything up?

Suddenly the janitor hears something outside his closet door. Something approaches.

He holds his breath and digs into the covers. It is stagehands, Jacques and Francois, who keep on walking by.

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