timestones | 💫 Presto Cleano! 💫

Le Bateleur Av. in Maurtia Falls, PA hosts the Presto Cleano!--just your regular, run-of-the mill laundromat.

Washers, dryers, dry-cleaning, ironing, folding, all pretty standard stuff.

Presto Cleano! is open 24/7, 365 days a year (366 every four or so years), is family run, and it's been on the same street downtown for as long as anyone can remember.

... Right? It has been here forever, hasn't it? It must have been. It looks it. All well-maintained and always ticking along, but a little worn around the edges, could probably do with a new lick of paint around the windows where the last few layers are starting to peel away from weather wear and tear.

At the back, there's a dark blue door. There's nothing special about it, really. But it does have a couple of cheap door numbers drilled into the wall with a single screw in the middle of each: 3A.

It's probably just the cleaning closet--the mop and bucket on wheels that always seems to be outside certainly suggests so.

As it happens, 3A is where Presto Cleano!'s lodger lives. Is it usual for laundromats to have lodgers? Well, it is for this one.

Though immediately upon stepping through the dark blue door something is... odd.

First, there's a staircase immediately through the door and not only is it a different style to the laundromat, it doesn't look like it could fit in the building. And walking up feels like walking down, walking down feels like walking up. It's... weird. But no matter which way you go, the first door you arrive at is always the same entryway and then down into the same reception room.

Taking parts of places that suit his needs, Stephen Strange has created a patchwork home for himself and... well, anyone else who ends up there, really, and his tastes have ended up quite eclectic. And why not? He can borrow whatever rooms he wants.

It means he has obtained various sitting areas and reading nooks, bedrooms (so many random bedrooms), several bathrooms, and the kitchen.

There's a brightly lit conservatory, an inviting wet room, a beautiful courtyard to stumble upon, and a sprawling library.

Many of the rooms have spectacular views, all impossible from the Maurtia Falls location, including the equally impossible roof terrace.

Sometimes rooms appear and disappear, sometimes the doors lead somewhere other than they had before, and sometimes it's raining in one room, sunny in another, and maybe snow creeps through a window of a hallway.

It's a real hodgepodge scrapbook of a home that's probably a gross misuse of the Mystic Arts, but when you can't bring your Sanctum with you, make a new one...