On the way out of town if you should pass through a yellow, kiss your fist and punch the ceiling. Though you are credibly safe if you do not see the light turn red before you pass under it, it never hurts to have some further insurance.
Don’t light things with a white lighter. Anything. The stakes are simply too high. And though I don’t know the rules concerning lighters that are covered in a plastic wrapping (depicting, for example, a twelve-point buck emerging from the forest or a plaid pattern), I try to avoid them; beneath the cover, the lighter is white. There is a danger in neglecting to take this single precaution.
If you find that you need time to rest, make sure that all electrical devices in the room, alarm clock notwithstanding, are disengaged from their circuits entirely. Unplug the fuckers. All that extra science in the air is potential dream contaminate. Besides, if you’re anything like me you will hear its high pitched song, and you will stir all night in your bed.
If for some reason you need to slap or in any way apply force to your left thigh, make sure you do the same to your right. It is equally important to make sure that both the number of slaps and the firmness of the slaps remain symmetrically equivalent, and your body balanced. If you lose count, slap both of your thighs as many times as possible over the course of, say, maybe a minute. This increases the total number of slaps received on both sides in your lifetime and, however incrementally, minimizes the percentage of error accrued by your recent miscalculations.
Write it down or you will lose it. Water saves.
When you reach the sewer, go to the exit pipe and follow my instructions. They’re written down on a napkin, right now, tacked to my wall. I’ll send them to you. Mine will be the envelope with the upside-down stamp.
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First published in Directions to Minus World, Eye for an Iris no. 14, 2005; subsequently in Quarter After Eight, 2006, and in Brevity and Echo, Rose Metal Press, 2006.
Image by Justin Morgan and Triple-U design, 2005.
