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And now I will be your life coach.
Buy yourself a new sofa, a big three-seated soft thing that will fit nicely in front of your TV and complement the colors of the living space, perfect central point of congregation for the guests of a casual dinner party. Then get to work on your pantry and vegetable bin, stocking up on spices and tubers and greens of all manner and sort. Get a recipe book and learn it well, chopping and baking your way to culinary expertise.
Now make your way to a local trade show and buy impressive swords and knives, mounting them along the walls of your refurbished home. When people ask you about them, say nervously that they remind you of your uncle, and if questioned further change the subject and let your guests know that you hope the wine is suiting them well.
One day we will all live in Paris against a cloudless blue sky watching the swoopings of birds, remarking to one another in short phrases, in French of course, though we are not quite sure what day it is or when exactly we picked up French. No matter. The city of light has become the city where everybody is from everywhere else, and there is no alienation in tow, just endless summer days with a wind that is a bit too strong and threatens to blow away the papers in your hands covered with something like writing.
The wet ink presses against your hands, adding to the black semi-scribbles already there. Your vision has been getting blurrier for a time, though it is hard to be sure how long. The dream is fraying at the edges, old cloth not torn but disintegrating. You realize there are tears in your eyes and they sting, it grows harder to breathe, your chest a pool whose depth you keep overestimating, trying to capture oxygen that seems to have fled the area.
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