Grau del Grau
Instructions
Cut open your body. Remove any parts that are rotting or no longer work.
Replace them all with new parts. You may choose to use parts with a different function. For example, you may exchange a heart for a brain, a stomach for a kidney, blood for water.
Tell everyone in your neighborhood that you’ve changed. You may tell them each individually, post an ad in the newspaper, hire a skywriter, etc. (For more ideas, see index: “How To Let People Know That You’ve Changed.”)
Keep your old parts in storage. You may freeze or pickle them.
Show these parts to the people you become intimate with. Reveal them one at a time, so that your relationships do not suffer too early.
Remove your shoes and walk west from home. Cut off pieces of your hair as you go.
Continue until you run out of hair, or you reach the sea.
Send a postcard to your friend which reads: “Follow the hair”
Don’t go home. Wait for them to meet you.
Tell your deepest secret to a dog in the neighborhood. Choose a dog you’re unfamiliar with.
Mention to your neighbors that something about the dog seems “a bit different lately.” Ask if they’ve noticed, too. Try to sew suspicion.
After dark, stand watch outside the dog’s house. Wait until morning to be sure they haven’t told your secret.
Create an alphabet with one letter. You may invent a letter of your own, or borrow one from another alphabet (i.e. よ, я, दो, a).
Go through the dictionary of your language and transcribe each word into the new alphabet. For example, the word “we” might be written “aa,” or the word “cherry” as “aaa.”
Words can be written horizontally, vertically, or you may stack your letter in either direction. Some suggestions:
a a a a a
aaa aaaaaa a
a a a
a
Once your dictionary is complete, translate some well-known poems. Choose poems from a variety of styles, traditions, disciplines, and backgrounds. A translation of Bashō's famous haiku about the moon could be written as:
a a a
aaaa aa aaaaaa aa aaaa aa a aaaaaaaa aaa aaaaa aaaa aa aaaaaaaaaa
a a aa aaa a a
Publish a volume of these translations, but keep your dictionary private. See how long it takes others to learn how to read these poems, or even to begin writing their own poems with your alphabet.
When you find your spirit walking ahead of you:
Walk behind at a safe and steady distance. (Don’t chase it: your spirit will become scared and run.) Follow until your spirit decides to turn to you.
If you lose track of your spirit, wait in place until it returns; otherwise, it could become lost and not know how to find you.
Do not attempt to replace it. There will be no room left inside you if your spirit ever returns, and it will be left to wander. (See index, “Living Without a Spirit.”)
To become funny:
Remove all humor from your life. Dress in muted colors, eat food with no spice, read only the driest books and watch the most strident films. Criticize others in ideological terms. Be stingy.
Live this way for about ten to twenty years, enough time to pass through a generation and to become known for your lack of humor.
During this time, craft a joke in private. Don’t share it with anyone, and never say it publicly. Work on this joke until it makes you laugh every time.
Attend a party with whatever friends and family you still have. At a quiet moment, step forward and tell your joke.
Return home. Resist the temptation to tell further jokes.
Throw a surprise party for your friend. The theme for the party is their own wake.
Have their friends and family dress in mourning. Keep the casket closed. Provide refreshments.
Ask those in attendance to say what they truly thought about your friend, so that they might hear it. (You may also leave a guest book for them to sign their farewell wishes.)
Let your friend wander the rooms as a ghost. They may listen in on any conversations and may go wherever they like, but they cannot interact with guests or intervene in the wake itself.
At the end of the party, have all guests exit the funeral home. Lock the doors. Your friend, the ghost, must stay behind.
Write your autobiography in pencil in a lined notebook.
When complete, begin erasing your work. Erase one word per day.
Do not erase words consecutively; in the morning, open to any page and remove whichever word you see first.
Continue until the entire book is erased (or you pass away). Make arrangements to have a copy of the book published in whatever state it is in at the time of your death.
Turn to any instruction here.
Erase every other word.
Complete the instruction as written.
When you are nearing the end of your life:
Write a character description for yourself. Include any significant mannerisms, behaviors, ailments.
Cast someone to take over your life. Provide your written description as well as any other biographical material that might be important to understanding you.
Send your replacement to meet friends and family, to work in your place, to take on common activities (e.g. visiting your favorite shops, walking around the lake, kissing your husband, paying the electric bill).
Throw yourself a birthday party. Send the replacement in your place; do not attend (though you may watch from a distance).
Move away. Don’t use the name or personality you have replaced. Make a new life.
Leave behind instructions for your replacement to pass the character down after their death. Let yourself be performed once or twice a century, continuously, until the role is lost or forgotten.
Don’t hurt anyone.
If you hurt someone, start over.
Grau Del Grau has lived next to two oceans. Their work has appeared in JK Zine and in the last issue of Barzakh.