1. Battle your way against the current of the Nile until you reach its
source, the majestic Lake Victoria.

2. Allow your ship to be raided as many times as necessary until you
have nothing of value. Accept navigational help from the crew of the
first craft to try to leave you no poorer than before. (Conceal these
directions during this step.)

3. Lake Victoria's waters are shared by three nations: Kenya, Tanzania,
and Uganda. Land in Kenya and search for the former Port Florence.

4. The town square includes notes on its settlement by the descendents of
refugee Cathars, presented in the guise of a chronological list of signif-
icant droughts. We are in particular concerned with the Cheval (horse)
family.

5. The Cheval heir goes out at night to subtly deface every dwelling but
his own. You will find him.

6. Allow him to extract a vial of your blood. Once he removes the hemo-
globin it can be processed by his marvelous machine. The machine's bounty
must be left to sit.

7. Bide your time at the market, where tilapia is plentiful. Retrieve at
least ten specimens, as the tilapia's tender flesh hangs thin on the bone.
By this time you have liberated some of Cheval's wealth to bring with you
to market; it is as dirt to him anyway.

8. Juries in the former Port Florence are notoriously susceptible to
gossip. Salt your speech in the public square with lurid accusations
against the unnamed. They will turn up as testimony in the trials of some
persons you do not know.

9. Cheval has set the table and prepared a curry.

10. Guests arrive one by one. Those you recognize, your former relation-
ship to them is ended as of this moment. You will be boning the fish for
at least as long as it takes them to all appear. Of COURSE you cannot be
trusted with a knife!

11. One guest will bring a dog that will enjoy chewing the delicate bones
you've extracted. Make certain you sit by this guest.

12. Your timepiece and Cheval's have gone out of sync! Insist the meal's
beginning be set by yours.

13. During supper you must speak to no one. Cheval can engage the guest at
whose elbow you placed yourself. A crowd has gathered outside. Cheval will
leave the table to make sure they have no mischief in mind.

14. Someone has died of the curry. Ha! The guests' course is uncertain.
You must leave hand-in-hand with the dog owner. The former Port Florence
is on the brink of disaster. How far can you travel in a single night?

15. Ha!

written for Colin Holden in my bedroom 3/14/02

Based on the principle that if you flap your arms hard enough you can fly, I decided to write a story when I didn't think I was in the mood. Hey, I used to do this every day, right? So the problem is that I made it too easy for myself to cheat (i.e. write things with no point in mind) at the beginning, and then hoo boy dropped the ball at the end. You can see how I meant to bring in "left holding the spoon". I don't know at what point I forgot that I had yet to do so.

The good part of this one: I often have narrators speaking sternly, or characters who are charged with some task that they smoothly, earnestly carry out despite either they or the reader not knowing why. This piece explores a little bit of the strain on those ideas; taking orders isn't fun, but being absolved of responsibility for thinking can be.

Lists are increasingly a crutch instead of a useful tool, though since this one has a time-order one could think of it as more like a comic book, in structure, than just a list. I'll probably leave the numbers in on revision, which, by the way, I definitely mean to undertake. Items #2, 4 and 8 stand out most to me as needing to be scrapped, though from #2 we get that the instructions are "real", and #8 is a good place for a break in rhythm. It's just that miswritten things are never a good break.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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