the complete manual of disappearance
- 1. Chant in front of a mirror (until the words elide): "I am I am I am…"
- 2. When crossing hills or ridges, run away from the sun.
- 3. In the middle of a conversation, gradually diminish your voice so the listener hears less and less minute by minute until there is nothing to hear, everything to say.
- 4. Open a big wooden box, place and open a smaller box inside the first, a third in the second, a fourth in the third, and so on until the nth smallest box, where n increases to infinity.
- 5. The trick is to first land on the outside edge of the ball of your foot, roll to the inside ball, and finally place the heel down. Shift your weight to the other foot then repeat the process. Squint your eyes to conceal the light-dark contrast of the whites of the eye. This is how a mime walks, invisible to the ear.
- 6. Disassemble the phone. Pull the shades down, the lamps off. Reside in the deepest parts of shadows (The outer edges of a shadow are lighter, and the deeper parts are darker). Spend twenty-four hours alone. Lay your body on the floor and remain motionless. Close your eyes, vanquish your thoughts. Keep doing this for an hour, two, three, until it feels natural.
- 7. Write your name on a leaf and set it on fire.
- 8. Collect your tears in empty jars, one jam jar at a time.
- 9. The principle of cancellation states that opposites cancel each other: quarks and anti-quarks, fear and desire, river and fire.
- As applied to feeling: Imagine the happiest moment in your life. Relive it in memory as it happened. Stop. Now, imagine your saddest moment. Relive it the same. Stop. Now, relive both moments at the same time, together.
- 10. In the nth smallest box, deposit your heart. Close this box. Then close the bigger box housing it, then the next bigger one, then another, and another, until all n boxes are closed on one another, where n increases to infinity.
- 11. Offer a finger to a candle’s flame until it hurts you.
- 12. Offer your hand to the flame until it stops hurting.
- 13. When the circus acrobat leaps from a fifty-foot pole to plunge into a water bath a meter thick on the ground, the audience gasps (Fear is concentric: It begins where the line of sight ends and ends where the line begins).
- The acrobat practices: He steps on the edge of a chair and leaps to the floor, feeling the rush as the air flares up his face as he falls. Then he sets himself on something higher, like a table then jumps. He scales a ladder to the ceiling, climbs a tree, pole, watchtower. He keeps increasing the height until no one sees him and the fear to jump leaves him completely, layer by layer.
- 14. Stare at the sun until the light blinds you.
- 15. The acrobat imagines there is a highest possible point in the sky where if he were to fall from it the fall would never end.
- 16. Begin in a crowd. Choose person A. Walk away so there is the greatest possible incremental distance between you and A. Then choose person B, and walk away from both such that there is the greatest incremental distance between you, A, and B. Then choose C, then another, and another, until you are walking away from n number of persons and are farthest away from n number of them, where n increases to infinity.
- 17. Barricade the doors. Turn off the lights. No wind in the room, no plants, no windows. Practice holding your breath. Keep to this room until the air runs out.
- 18. At the plaza, the box contortionist attracts a huge crowd. The audience is delighted. He is, like them, normal-sized. To show there are no tricks, they touch his body.
The demonstration starts with the contortionist entering a glass box the size of a small room. Next he enters a box the size of a phone booth, next a closet, next a cupboard. The boxes become smaller and smaller until the audience can’t believe their eyes. (The sunlight blinds.)
The contortionist fits into smaller and smaller spaces until finally he fits into nothing and disappears.
- 19. Write all your lovers’ names on a leaf and set it on fire.
- 20. Hide behind a tree.
- 21. The trick is to imagine it is real. This is how you open an imaginary door: Apply pressure upwards on the handle to avoid squeaks. Turn the handle to withdraw the bolt before opening, keeping the handle pushed down while passing through the door, then push it against the frame to refit the bolt without snapping, quietly releasing the handle.
- 22. The mime keeps on opening door after door after door. The audience is pleased, but what is the mime trying to say, that the space of the mind is a thousand doors? (The self is concentric: It begins where the line of sight ends).
The mime keeps on opening door after door after door until he wanders very far away from the crowd and has closed all the doors behind him.
- 23. Release your red finger from the flame. Imagine the smoke from your finger is the soul. Cup the smoke in your hand. Squeeze it into a bottle. Let it fill the whole room. Open the window, your soul filling up the sky.
- 24. The cupboard filled with jarfuls of tears, gather all the jars in your arms and tramp towards the bathroom. Pour all of it into the bathtub, one jar at a time. Take off your clothes. This will be like swimming in the sea. Submerge yourself. Hold your breath. Close your eyes.
- 25. Step on the edge of a chair. Before jumping to the floor, noose an imaginary rope around your neck.
- 26. Throw a dozen knives high up in the air and run beneath as they fall without looking up.
- 27. Reopen the big wooden box. Open the smaller box inside the first, the third in the second, fourth in the third, and so on before the nth smallest box. Dazzle the audience. Tell them the heart will disappear. Make a big show of it. Exaggerate your movements. Chant some magic words.
- 28. Thirteen floors up, in a watchtower, without anyone noticing, set yourself on fire, then swan dive out the window, chanting (until the words elide): “I am I am I am…”
- 29. The world turning around you, dance a pirouette: Keep your head faced front, eyes focused on a point. Until the rest of your body is halfway around, snap the head about, ahead of the turning body, eyes returning to the point.
- 30. The trick is to imagine that the world is real.
- 31. The fall never ends.
- 32. Open the box.
