You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind,

a journey into a wondrous land of imagination.

Next stop, The Twilight Song. What You Need by Lewis Padgett.

The story opens with the words we have what you need written backwards as if viewed in a mirror.

Tim Carmichael, who worked for a trade paper that specialised in economics, and eked out a meagre

salary by selling sensational and untrue articles to the tabloids, failed to sense a story in the

reversed sign. He thought it was a cheap publicity

gag, something one seldom encounters on Park Avenue, where the shop fronts are noted

for their classic dignity, and he was irritated. He growled silently, walked on, then suddenly

turned and came back. He wasn't quite strong enough to resist the temptation to unscramble the sentence.

Those annoyance grew.

He stood before the window, staring up, and said to himself,

We have what you need, yeah.

The sign was in prim, small letters, on a black painted ribbon that stretched across a narrow glass pane.

Below it was one of those curved invisible glass windows. Through the window Carmichael could see an expanse of white velvet, with a few objects carefully arranged there, a rusty nail, a snowshoe, and a diamond

tiara. It looked like a dali decor for Cartier or Tiffany. Jewelers, Carmichael asked silently,

but why what you need? He pictured millionaires, miserably despondent for lack of a matched

pearl necklace. Airiresses weeping

inconsolably because they needed a few star sapphires.

The principle of luxury merchandising was to deal with the whipped cream of supply and demand.

Few people needed diamonds, they merely wanted them and could afford them.

Or the place might sell Ginny flasks, Carl Michael decided, or Magic Wands.

...