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What will you do when your foot falls asleep, but instead of being able to raise it, the appendage sinks into the floor? Try as you might, your leg extends 8,000 feet down into the Earth’s mantle, burrowing into ground and fossil and whatever carbon beings await.

What will you do when, half-awake, you catch your bones and tendons rigid. But instead of eventually snapping out of paralysis, a heavenly being, beautiful in all ways, approaches. Wraps you in light. And never lets go? When you see everything move around you. Alive but falling.

What will you do when the roast chicken gets cold? What then?

Please don’t manage to get small. Please.

I can assure you, things will be alright in the end.

One time I visited an upscale metropolitan neighborhood, a guarantor offered me the deal of a lifetime. “It’s the deal of a lifetime,” she kept saying. “The deal of a lifetime!” The deal of a lifetime!” I folded. She handed me a tin box. “Don’t open it before you get home!” She said. I nodded, handed her five thousand dollars in cash, and left. She didn’t even say the amount. That’s just what I gave her. When I came home and looked inside, a little silver coronet, far too small to wear. I looked at the text emblazoned on it: “March 08, 2087 AD.” a slip of paper came with it that read: “This date may be when you die. But it also might not be.”

I took the coronet to an appraiser. They told me the silver was fake. I kind of thought that would be the case. I’ll look forward to 2087.