Ten Surveillance Tips for the Amateur Revenge-Killer

If Britannica’s wearied of your volatile emotions, childlike hysteria, nascent pouting, and excessive attachment, then fasten to her and issue toothless talk of Alan’s murder.

One: If Britannica offers to serve as your spy, browse Amazon for Wi-Fi cameras. Wi-Fi cameras in clock radios, Wi-Fi cameras in Happy Valentine’s Glass Roses, known to the general populace as crack or meth pipes; Wi-Fi cameras that don’t

“have” time but are instead Being and Time; Wi-Fi cameras in copies of Time and Narrative; Wi-Fi cameras in Precious Moments figurines; Wi-Fi cameras that float undiscernibly on the skein of the onto-temporal; Wi-Fi cameras in bottles of liquid tears, and most relevant to your journey, Wi-Fi cameras in custom Baphomet pins.

Two: If Britannica suggests giving Tim the pin as a present, on a date, understand her real agenda is only to, “Escape the Haleybury Motel fart world for a while. ”

Three: Observe outputs from Tim’s lapel at Wacky Wings— an upstart regional wing franchise with 100 flavours of wings, all of them nearby inedible, e.g. ‘dill flavour wings just Kernels popcorn spice aggressively sprinkled upon tiny frozen wings. ’ Gaze from Tim’s left pectoral at Britannica’s pleather basque. Pride yourself on selecting so fine a basque.

Four: Hope the basque’s contents won’t draw unwanted attention from any anti-privacy watchdogs dining at Wacky Wings.

Five: If Britannica laughs too heartily at Tim Raval’s jokes, regret (or is it resent) not having made her laugh in many days. Recall how easy it had been to make Marcel_Proust laugh once he’d grown capable at four months old, e.g. ‘jangling keys, ’ e.g. ‘the old missing thumb rouse. ’ Reassure yourself by speaking aloud, “Heck, I’m funny. ”

Six: If Britannica’s eye sparklings call to mind the Borderline Personality Disorder mistress, and moreover your sister Catherine, hope it’s more than mundane eye-crinkling from which you’ve built a “castle of memories. ”52

Seven: Hope Britannica returns to your unhappy Haleybury home with two pounds of Garlic Parm wings as requested.

Eight: If upon her gormless and Parmless return, Britannica is downright aglow, calculate the rotten odds of losing a second Catherine to a second Raval. Arrive at a solution surely compromised by your inability to proceed past Grade 10 math, i.e. 1/8000. ”

Nine: Wonder if the past is even causally closed.

Ten: Wonder if you are still in hell and these Transmogrification Blues aren’t one long jaunt through some Ubikian funhouse of subjunctive pain. Wonder if each successive spray of the Ubik can will tease and torture you with ever-realer Catherines, all to be stolen again and again and again and again. 52 (Foley, 1989)