To start, you make yourself a sandwich. You hold it like a football, stand in the wind, and winnow the meat from the cheese, letting both fall limp to the sand. This is to acknowledge your kinship with the wilted kelp, which also falls that way.
Done with greetings and offerings, you set the table, face North, admit daylight and discover a knob. It seems like snare, but the gods aren’t here to trap you; not today. The knob gives heat.
You put on your glasses and tuck a crowd of feathers behind your left temple. Now blow the man down.
There is no hot water, so you float tea bags in old rain puddles. You’re determined to see this thing through, alone. You won’t drop your skirt for anyone tonight, though you might lift it over your head and make eyeholes.
The waste basket is empty—there, you’ve done it! A first beautiful line. You unfold the futon and wait. A disease in the feathers catches your ear.
You walk outside. It’s so dark it doesn’t seem worth it, but you think again and go inside to get the broom. You bring it out and sweep the ground, which sounds different than the floor. The ground is like cracked barrels, and isn’t that why you came here in the first place?
You imagine the broom tracks in the morning, like a visit from teething whales. This gives you the willies and you stop sweeping. Instead, you plan your morning and, while you’re at it, the rest of your life. You plan to live only on apples, and on the charm of apples. That should take care of whatever this 24 hour retreat does not.
At some point you put on sweatpants. If your waist wanted to touch things at the stars’ radius, well blooming hell, it could. Sweatpants aren’t giving, just more permitting. The rest of your clothes are fine.
In one repeating motion, you make a chair with your body then try to sit on yourself. After you’ve made yourself hungry, you know it’s time to go.