The world must be ending, and it’s best if you oversleep.
You must start the day with a conversation about money –
There must not be enough, even though your significant
other would like to visit their brother in New York, who
has been having seizures and was recently engaged.

You both must hem and haw – you can each take one
or both have some of either. You must shake your fists,
lamenting your situation, capitalism, and the IRS. While
you must not be cruel, you can make jokes at each other’s
expense. And then you must decide to go out for breakfast.

The irony of this must not be lost on you. The place you
patronize must be within walking distance – this is most
important. One of you must work there because you must
receive a discount, enabling you to more easily justify the
needless cost. You must lie, it’s cheaper than groceries!

It does not matter what you order, but it must be the most
delicious thing on the menu. There must be a table of school-
children outside, learning to make salsa with the vegetables
they grew in their school garden, and they must wave at you
through the window and, delighted, you must wave back.

On your walk home – see, the walk is pertinent – you must be
alone. Perhaps you have an appointment, so your lover stays
to pay the bill. Maybe they hang back to make a phone call.
The reason is irrelevant. You are alone, and you must stop only
to examine a free library, which must contain nothing of interest.

You must have recently auditioned for a play – Shakespeare.
Any one is okay, but a comedy is preferable. It must have
gone poorly. While you walk, you must be hit by the hot rush
of shame and you must clench around it, bracing. Then you
must say, I release and destroy my need to have done well.

Which is an affirmation you must have read in a book given
to you by your aunt – it does not matter which side, or whether
you are actually related. You must repeat; I release and
destroy my need to have done well. You must believe it, or
you must earnestly try to believe it. You may soften slightly.

Just then, you must be passed on the sidewalk by a man
on a bicycle, and he must be playing choral music at an
offensively high volume from a speaker attached to his bike.
You cannot prearrange this, it must organically happen.
And you will feel for thirty seconds – or more – at peace.

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