How to Win Over New Neighbours

If Young Americans arrive at the abutting cabin, zesty of spirit, bulky of trapezoid, having lived exactly twenty years, adept at backflips and low-end banter, Catherine “simply must” swim over to introduce herself.

One: Curse all the world’s undeserving Chads! Feel the sorrows of young Werther even if for the time being you remain the Albert. Remember you have no claim to stake, for it’s you who are the ghost.

Two: If Catherine suggests inviting “the boys” over for a barbecue, cite a paucity of foodstuffs and the increasing danger of travelling to the Ebola-ridden Sault. Gaze-communicate your true love but only manage to look territorial and weak, a bad combination.

Three: If the boys arrive with their undressed wounds, their blood-clotted rags, and their youthful ambivalence towards Ebola and death writ-large, then toss the pigskin around, remembering to spin the laces off your fingertips to avoid throwing any embarrassing ducks.

Four: If the boy named Todd carves some lines of Python programming into the dirt with his dagger, ask Todd, “Sure you’re not the devil?” As the thunder rolls in, Todd’s little wink will mean, ‘That’s rich coming from you, the thief. ’ Repeatedly yawn and stretch i.e. ‘I think we’ve all seen enough chicken fights and one-handed handstands and spirals caught with the grace of Metatron for one day. ’

Five: Hear the one called Aubrey whispering to Todd about a midnight swim. Note the conspiratorial look of mischief on Catherine’s face. Vomit in the outhouse. Fail to ascertain how much blood is in the vomit due to the occluding shit swamp of the outhouse hole. Convince yourself that even if Catherine leaves the marriage bed for Todd’s sleeping bag, and even if everyone’s organs are liquified by dawn, still you’ll have known again the girl you’ve loved since you can’t remember when, and these short and Philoviral hours will have been worth something.

Six: Hear increasingly drunken hooting from the neighbouring camp as the clock strikes nearer to midnight. If you partake of unwanted spirits hoping to keep Catherine entertained, grow drunk only in a maudlin and Wertherian way that causes you to question the necessity of her brassiere change.

Seven: If inclined to cite A Lover’s Discourse from your photographic memory, remember that Catherine never really went in for the literary. And while impressionable, she is not impressionable in the way Britannica was, because she is a visceral person, designed to live rather than to contemplate living, who knows that the hot blood of the transcendent can only be brought to linguistic life through an ego vesicle. And while likely as wearied by Todd and Aubrey’s lack of originality as you are, their esprit is enough to rouse her from the scrabble board, much as esprit lured her to the asphyxiational highway of Alan Raval.

Eight: If you were always meant to lose her, over and over, loss and loss and more Goethean loss, then keep your head up, not in the figurative sense, but to limit the outpouring of your hot-blooded nosebleed.

Nine: Refuse her coy apologetics as she decamps. Offer blithely, “Why not be debauched by a relation instead?” If she shrugs at this, watch her through the grass as though you were Terrence Malick’s camera or a serpent. Wonder how frequently she’ll deny you before the cock crows. Wonder if a vital organ’s liquefaction really matters relative to being cuckolded by back-flipping Audrey. Should you search the cabin for your uncle’s hunting rifle, find only his fishing pole.

Ten: If Catherine returns hours later, looking sated, mischievous, and prepared to lie, don’t even ask. Hold her again. Accept that she has caught Aubrey’s fine spiral and been Python programmed by Tim’s dagger. Turn on the CBC to find fellowship amidst your fellow cucks. Know that monsters are in your midst. Know that your reality is finally commensurate to your intensity of feeling. Feel flux and fear of mythic proportions. Blaze right on through what must constitute your best life: the Philoviral miasma of a past reconciled.