“You’re… a talking frog.” I said, an uncertain query at the end of the observation.

“Crrrbbbrrrch?” the frog replied. I poked it and it hopped forward irritably. I tried for a few seconds to induce it to say something else, when a loud rustle like the sound of dry leaves on asphalt in the fall reminded me of the column of paper advancing upon me. I turned down a side passage I hadn’t noticed before, a narrow path bordered by looming filing cabinets like something from Brazil.

I ran down the steel-lined rift. An incandescent-bulb whiteness flooded the exit ahead of me and limned a human figure. Behind me I heard the rustle of pursuing paper and a ragtimey voice sang, “Hello m’baby, hello m’honey, hello m’ragtime gaaal-”

The man standing in the light at the end of the tunnel was (of course) Robert De Niro in black terrorist garb. That’s what I get for falling asleep with the TV on while TCM is doing A Tribute To Terry Gilliam. When Tuttle spoke, it was my father’s voice, not De Niro’s, and he said-