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What did you think about before falling asleep last night? The last thing you remember, the last image, what was it? What brand of cereal do your taste buds prefer? Is that the one you eat or are you trying to be healthy? What do you do during the moments in the day when you're not working? How many of them – those moments– are spent in bed? You look happier, are you? Do you smile at yourself in the mirror? When someone asks how you are doing what do you say? Do you tell people the truth about how you are actually doing? Or do you make some general comment, like 'Good. You?' ? Do you feel bad for dead plants? What about rotting bananas? Isn't that the same thing? Is the level of bad feelings the same for both? Have you ever stood outside in the rain? Just stood and not walked? Do you ever think about going from a walking motion to a laying down position? Do you ever stop for a moment and wonder if you could bring yourself to do it? On the sidewalk in front of people? When you are around people in communal outdoor spaces like a park do you feel more or less lonely? More or less lonely than when you are making out with someone you don't really know? Have you ever forgotten someone's name that you've made out with, the next day? Have you ever forgotten your best friend's name, for a second? On a scale of 1-5 how much better has this year been compared to 1994? (1 means it's not at all better, 5 is like holy shit this year is so much fucking better than 1994). How many times did you lie today? Do you think the person you were lying to thought about whether you were telling the truth or not? Was this person you? Is the voice inside your head very much like the person you are in real life? How many people would you say really know you? How many of these people are people you've kissed? How many of them are still in your life? Do you talk to any of them more than once a day? Do you talk to anyone more than once a day on a regular basis? Between 5-7 times a week? Who is it? Do you prefer mornings or nighttime for sex? Do you ever turn all the lights off? Have you ever thought about leaving forever without telling anyone? Where would you go? Would you tell me if I promised not to visit you or tell? Do you prefer cloudy or cloudless skies? When was the last time you laughed until you cried? Those are very different emotions, were you really happy or really sad when this happened?

HOW TO FAIL AT LIFE IRL: FORGETTING SOMEONE

When your friend phones you from work to figure out what you’ll do later on, because it’s Friday and that undoubtedly means it would be weird if you stayed at home, don’t tell her you’re in bed trying to force sleep at 5 p.m. When what you really want to say is ‘I’d like to hide under my bed tonight’, don’t. Instead tell her you’re easy and say yes after each suggestion she makes. Just yes and nothing else.

I was thinking we could go to Bohmer first and have a few cocktails. Yes. Then we could go visit a friend on College St. for an 80’s party. Yes. Maybe we could go to that gay party, but that might be a really long night. Yes. I’ll head to the liquor store on the way, was thinking of splurging on a bottle of Redbreast tonight. Yes.

When you get off the phone and close your eyes, imagine doing things with the person you are trying to forget. Imagine doing normal things like brushing your teeth together or sitting in silence on your computers, both of your faces lit up by your screens, sometimes saying something to each other, sometimes not. Decide you’re not going to spend the entire day thinking about forgetting someone. Get out of bed but then lie down again. Try to think about where the script you’re writing is going next. Imagine a black limo driving down an empty street, headed for a funeral. Get up again. Decide you are hungry and you’re going to make dinner, when you’re actually not hungry at all and would like to go on a diet. Make quinoa and listen to a radio program about volcanos. Imagine a small volcano erupting in your sink and expelling the person you are trying to forget. Eat the quinoa while standing at your sink. Take a shower and mostly just stand there not doing anything. When you hear a noise outside the bathroom and know it’s your roommate coming home, imagine it being the person you are trying to forget coming home instead. Continue imagining them taking their coat off and putting away the groceries. Imagine them coming into the bathroom and surprising you in the shower. Imagine them naked in the shower with you. Turn off the shower and get out. Look at yourself in the mirror. Squeeze the fat on your stomach and look at it, then look into your eyes. Brush your teeth with your eyes closed. Light your last cigarette and think about how this will be your last cigarette for a few days because you can’t afford to buy more of them.

When your friend comes over, talk about how windy it is tonight. Talk about how the wind would knock you over if you were riding a bike. Check the weather website and say ‘Wow. 85 km/hr.’ Have three glasses of whiskey in the first twenty minutes. Feel a little drunk. When your friend goes to the bathroom, look at the facebook profile page of the person you’re trying to forget, look at their girlfriend. Look closely at their girlfriend and wonder if she’s prettier than you. Go to your own facebook page to see if you are pretty. Look at yourself in a picture and then go back to the girlfriend, quickly. Click back and forth to compare your faces. When your friend comes back down ask if you can smoke one of her cigarettes – even though you hate her brand – and close the browser quickly. Think, beggars can’t be choosers and then that was close, phewph. When you look over and the bottle of whiskey is half-finished ask if you can have another cigarette. Realize you don’t even taste them anymore.

When you are sitting at the bar of a fancy restaurant an hour later, look at all the couples having dinner. Ask your friend how many dates she thinks the couple – the girl with too much gel in her hair and the guy in a bad tweed jacket – have been on. She says three, you think eighteen. Tell your friend you have to use the bathroom. When you are in the bathroom, sit down to pee and think about the time you had dinner here with the person you're trying to forget and how you laughed at the food when it arrived. He said it looked liked dinner for small to mid-sized raccoons with refined taste.

Find that somehow you've ended up at a strange party in the back of a restaurant that looks like someone's basement but also a tent. At first think how strange it is to have discovered this place but then imagine the person you are trying to forget and how they would have to either sit down or bow their head because the ceilings are low. When you run into a friend who is just as tall wonder how they are standing straight. Dance in the middle of the room full of people you don't know, with one or two people you do know but would prefer to ignore. Dance like he's watching you and thinking that the way you dance makes him want to have slow sex with you with lots of foreplay. Sit down on a pillow on the ground with your legs crossed even though you're wearing a skirt. Let your head hang forward, feel tired. Realize you are drunk and close your eyes and imagine the person you are trying to forget carrying you in the streets until you get home.

Hed's life took a drastic turn for the worse on September 3rd, 1991. He woke up that morning, not by the sun pushing through the cotton weave in his curtain, but by the breeze, making the cowboys on them gallop on uneven terrain. The curtain was light, and so with much ease it floated up into the air and then back against the window sill, making a quiet snapping sound each time it returned.

He watched this for some time, imagining a giant with unmanaged hair like moss and a long pointed beard, standing outside his window, rounding his large chapped lips and blowing into his room over and over again to awake him.

He spent a few moments trying to free himself of his blanket, a corner of the duvet had become free of the cover and so not only was it knotted on itself but around him as well. He kicked the bottom away from his feet and flailed his arms to get it off his chest. He lay there with his legs spread and his arms as far away from his body as he could manage, without pushing them over the edge of the mattress, relieved from the clutches of his blanket. He got up and walked to the window pushing the curtains away just enough so that he could fit himself between it and the window, to look out.

His dad was outside mowing the lawn that wrapped around the house to where his room overlooked. It was a Sunday, which reminded him of what awaited him at the kitchen table, his mother's pancakes, blueberry or banana-walnut depending on which was closer to going bad. He looked down at his dad for a few more minutes, the breeze felt cool against the damp skin of his stomach. The last few nights had been some of the hottest this summer and every morning he woke up damp with sweat. He watched his father turn off the lawn mower and bend over to pick something up, maybe a stick, or acorn. He threw it over the fence onto the neighbors front lawn. Hed chuckled a little at this. With the lawn mower off, he first noticed the silence and then the high pitched tone of some insect that he kept forgetting to ask his mother about.

As he walked towards his door, noticing the sweet smell of the pan fried cakes for the first time, he caught a glimpse of himself, in the mirror balancing on his dresser. Something had changed in the night, making him notice himself when he normally didn't. He only looked in the mirror if he was getting ready to go somewhere, where he'd have to look presentable according to this mother. So he'd reluctantly stand in front of his mirror wondering how to make himself look presentable. Normally he just patted down the stray hairs but mostly he just looked at his face wondering what else he was supposed to do.

This time however, something had grown on his face. At first he blinked a few times and then opened his eyes wider to make sure he was seeing right, leaning in closer to the mirror. There it was, the moment – he didn't yet realize – that his life would change. In the centre of his chin was a pimple that took up most of it, so large he didn't know how it could have developed over night. He imagined if someone were watching him in his sleep, surely they'd have seen it grow. First the colour of his skin would change, then matter would develop and expand under it and then the skin would stretch around it, all within less than eight hours. He had gotten a few pimples this summer, hardly pimples compared to this crater. They were small bumps on his forehead that his mother said were just sweat rashes, whatever that meant.

He brought his finger up to his chin without thinking and started running his finger around the edge, going around and around in circles. He liked the way it hurt at even the slightest grace of his finger and yet the more he touched it, the more nervous it made him. School was going to start in a few days.

His mother called up from downstairs. He didn't even want her to see it. He went back into bed and pulled the blanket over his head, the duvet now hanging almost half way out of the cover. He didn't mind, mostly because he could care less about the relationship his duvet had with the cover but also because it was cooler and he could make out the sunlight through the fabric over his eyes.

There was a knock at his door. She came in because she thought he'd still be asleep, there had never been a Sunday where he'd let the pancakes get cold. If they weren't hot enough for the butter to melt, he refused to eat them. Understandable, she thought. She sat on his bed gently so she wouldn't wake him up with the movement of the mattress under her weight.

Wake up, little munchkin. Breakfast is ready.

She got up and walked to the window, pushing away the curtains, opening the window a little wider, looking down at her husband who had started mowing again.

They had moved into the tin house three weeks ago, Olivia and her mother. She had been looking for work as a receptionist for two weeks, and then as anything, really, for two more. A girl she knew from college was working as a cleaning lady at the Shore Breeze hotel, which was a two hour drive from their house, said they had an opening.

One of the girls had been caught offering the guests some extra services. She had been doing this for the past year, had made nearly $4500 in addition to her salary but Jane said that she must have gotten lazy, less careful.

On a Tuesday evening, Frank had come to stay at the hotel as he did every month; he worked at the head office of the local fishery, which was no longer in the same town, since it had been bought out, and as they had done every month since September — it was now February — she knocked on his door and said 'cleaning' really loudly. Now, saying 'cleaning' really loudly is what she did at every door, but doing this at his meant something different. As had become custom, he opened the door and she pushed her cart with the clean linens and the dirty sheets she had collected from the night before, further from the door. She stepped closer to him and ran her hand under his robe. She wasn't looking up at him because she was taking in the smell of his chest while pushing him further into the room with her head. Maybe she was less careful because Frank was the only man she looked forward to seeing, the one she thought about for the rest of the day, coming in and out of rooms, sometimes having sex, sometimes whipping sheets and dust through the air and onto the beds. This time though, he stood rigid by the door, heaving is weight against her, not letting her further into the room.

Leave, he mumbled, pushing her back out into the hallway.

What’s wrong? I have a break now.

She moved closer to him again, grabbing onto the collar of his robe, straightening it out, something you only do with lovers. The door opened wider and beside him now, was what she presumed was his wife. She thought this, not because she knew he was married but because she looked like a mother and his age, which seemed older than him. She was also wearing a robe with Shore Breeze embroidered on the right side of her chest, which was larger than she had imagined.

Who the fuck are you?

The woman edged closer to her. She realized she was still holding onto his collar.

So this is how she had been caught. As she stood in the hallway, with the quiet sounds of televisions and love making finding their way through the plaster walls.

Olivia got ready for her first day at work.

Are you sure you can make it?

They stood a foot away from the perforated metal fence encompassing his backyard. It was a barrier between his yard and the moist dirt hill angling harshly to the local park, where they once caught salamanders for their science class. He thought about them crouched over the eggplant colored amphibian, the smell of her hair intoxicating him, so that he heard nothing except for the ringing in his ears. She tossed her hair behind her back, so long it brushed the soil at their feet, some brown earth clinging to the wheat coloured ends. She hadn’t noticed the streak of dirt she left on her cheek when she pushed the rest of her hair behind her ear, too intrigued by this wet creature in her palm. He reached towards her, thankful for this chance to touch her face. He rubbed it off with his thumb, the invisible blonde hairs of her face soft velveteen against his finger tip.

He heard the hallow sound of the metal fence against the poles that were forever locked against it. He looked up and she was already at the peak, her legs straddling either side of the fence, the area between her legs resting between the clipped wire ends.

Coming? Or what?

She threw her head back and laughed, this time her hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck.

Might need some help up here.

He pulled himself up with his arms, not able to use the diamond holes for his feet like she did, his boots too wide to fit. He only had a second for the rubber tip of his shoes to grip the edge before having to pull himself up again. He knew she was watching him, glad that he’d done this so many times before, liked the way he climbed expertly, taking him less than a minute to get to her.

She wasn’t quite sure how to maneuver herself to the other side of the fence.

You go first.

She said this as though challenging him, not wanting to admit she didn’t know what to do next.

Here, spread your left arm further away from you — he did this with his own arm — and angle your left toe into one of the holes in the fence, your feet fit. Hold on tight and then swing your right leg around. He swung his over the top and began climbing down.

He was already at the bottom of the fence when he looked up at her looking at the sky, her head thrown back the way she had when she laughed but this time just staring at the tangerine-hued clouds of the sunset.

Who’s taking their sweet time now, huh?

She looked down at him and began her descent, only slipping once at the bottom, the earth loose under her sole, mud now caked on her naked knees.

You okay?

Yeah, obviously, fine.

She wiped the mud from her knees with her palms and then her palms onto the back pockets of her cutoff levis.

They started down the hill, grabbing onto the large pine trunks for support. They didn’t speak the entire way, each just concentrated on their own limbs in an attempt not to go tumbling forward into the swamp. They kept moving further apart, the trees determining their path.

This way.

He started walking west, to the same rock they had found the salamander under the last time they were here two summers ago.

He waited for her to catch up.

Want some?

She pushed a can of coke in his direction, the cold air escaping through drops of perspiration on the outside of the can.

He took it from her.

Thanks.

He took a careful sip, a few bubbles still escaping into his nose. He gave it back to her and took off his backpack, hooking his arms through the straps so it was now on his chest. He unzipped the bag and took out a pack of Marlboros, a lighter and a bottle of water, the frozen water tapping against the inside of the plastic bottle.

It was hot, not one of the hottest days that summer but the recent rain made it unbearably humid. He lit a cigarette putting the Marlboros back into the bag before taking his first drag, one eye squinting against the cloud of smoke. He swung the backpack onto his back, shifting a little to get it into the right position. He took a drag and passed it to her.

Think we’ll find him again?

Yeah, maybe our little purple man’s had babies.

She spoke through the smoke escaping her mouth.

You think he found a purple wife?

Stop being ridiculous. He was the only purple salamander in the world, their babies’ll be brown. Maybe one of them'll be purple if he's lucky.

They both laughed at their conversation. She glanced over at him but he was staring down at his feet.

They finally got to the large rock where they last found him and climbed on top. The surface was still wet but as they sat down he could feel the moisture lifting, the sun sucking it back up into the sky.

She gave him the cigarette and lay down, her spine curving around the rock, her neck hanging over the edge, her knees saluting the sky, the mud now dry in cracked streams along her legs.

He leaned back on his elbows, at first looking at the crowd of pine trees and the stubborn rain drops clinging to the bottom row of needles where it was still cool, closest to the earth but soon his attention was drawn to her raised shirt, exposing a perfectly taut stomach. He had never seen this part of her before.

He looked from her stomach to the length of her stretched neck, the sun reflecting off small drops of sweat running to the back of her head. He positioned himself on his side towards her, resting the weight of his head on his hand. He put his index finger on the bottom of her chin, she moved slightly under his touch. He pulled his finger along her chin, down her neck, his fingertip now moist from her sweat and stopped at her collarbone. She opened her eyes and looked in his direction. He brought his finger up to his mouth and licked the moisture away.

Have you ever seen those shower curtains that have sentences about water and breathing on them? I’m sure you have. Like the one at my mom’s house that says — hold on let me check — water in a state of purity, a clear transparent liquid, and other stuff like, soap is an alkaline substance.

I had strong feelings of paranoia in the shower today. It was my fault. When my brother was in the shower last night I kept turning the faucet on in the kitchen; pretending I was washing cilantro but really I just thought it was funny imagining him getting really annoyed every time the water got scalding hot. Now I was afraid he'd do the same to me.

Anyways, I was in the bathroom smoking a cigarette with the shower running; I like the way the sound of running water drowns out my brain-talk a little and I noticed the room kept getting steamy and then really cold, he was getting back at me.

I got into the shower with feelings of paranoia and started washing my hair with my eyes open. I can tell if the water is going to get really hot by staring at the coiled pipe on the removable shower head, if it’s going to get hot the pipe jumps a little but that means you have to do everything facing the wall with the shower head, and just stare at the pipe. This is how you take a shower with feelings of paranoia.

So I'm at the lathering step of the shampoo process and just staring at this pipe, trying not to get shampoo in my eyes, while also thinking about what I’d do if I had to close my eyes. Like if I felt a shampoo dribble running down my forehead I’d have to close them right away. Because if I tried to keep my eyes open and the shampoo dribble got in my eye I’d have to close them and squint in pain anyways and then try to open them under the water to wash it out. But what if the water was scalding hot? Would I just burn my eyeball? That would be dangerous. It didn’t happen, the shampoo dribble or the hot water, I guess he got bored after the first fifteen minutes when I was smoking but he thought I was in the shower. Actually he did it once after I was in, but I just pushed my body against the cold ceramic tiles until I could feel the water cooling down on my toes, it was easier to maneuver because I was already done washing my hair. I was now at step two of the conditioning-my-hair process, which is leave in.

That has nothing to do with this story. I was talking about the shower curtains with strange breathing and water quotes. While I was being really careful in the shower I looked around for a bar of soap and only found a new Dove bar in its unopened packaging. I use soap for some parts of me and body wash for others because some skin is sensitive to really perfumy body washes, like the one my mother has that’s supposed to smell like pomegranates — even though pomegranates taste much stronger than they smell, they don’t actually smell like anything — but I guess pomegranates are really popular now and can be used to sell things. Like people will walk down the body wash aisle and see one that is supposed to smell like pomegranates and think that it has some antioxidant components because they heard something about pomegranates on Oprah, or whatever that Doctor’s spinoff show is. Anyhow, so as I’m unwrapping the Dove soap and trying to listen to the water getting hot; because right before it gets really hot it also makes a transitional sound and I can’t look at the pipe because I’m looking at the soap wrapper. I notice that the wrapper also has an inspirational(?) quote like the shower curtain. The wrapper says Happiness is a warm bath. This makes me really confused. I hate baths, only take them when I’m sick, or sometimes I think,' People like baths, l should try liking baths too.', or I want to do what I’ve seen in shit-movies where the girl lights candles, puts on some smooth jazz and reads a book.

A bath is not happiness, it’s mostly boring because you can’t do anything once you’re as long or longer than the tub. The soap packaging should have read ‘Happiness is a warm bath if you are shorter than 3 feet’. Because if you are shorter than 3 feet, you can pretend to swim, you can — wait, I change my mind — the packaging should say, ‘Happiness is a warm bath if you are shorter than 3 feet and younger than six’. Because I was going to say you can close your eyes and pretend you are swimming in the ocean, or that you are about to float into a whale's stomach, or the drain is going to suck you into another dimension, but that would be strange if you were older than six and shorter than 3 feet, essentially a midget, and you thought about floating into a whale’s stomach.

Right, about the weird shower curtains and Dove soap wrappers, that say strange things about baths, breathing and water. A bathroom is where you try to wash the shit off you, you brush your teeth to get rid of shit, you sit on the toilet to get rid of shit, you take a shower to get rid of shit. I mean, no amount of stupid quotes about warm baths being happiness is going to change the essence of the bathroom; a place to get rid of unwanted things.

Wait, I guess that would be happiness, a place to get rid of all your unwanted things. Like if you could just wash off, or pluck, or expel your unwanted feelings or memories, that would be happiness. That's what the quote on the Dove bar should say, 'A warm bath will extract every bad memory or feeling you've ever had, forever.' And then they could just put a disclaimer with a * to show that there is one, because at this point the person who's bought it is staring at the soap wrapper in the shower and their hands are wet and the wrapper is disintegrating, they won't even have a chance to get to the disclaimer. Or wait, maybe it wouldn't need one because 'Happiness is a warm bath' didn't. It's deceiving to tell someone that happiness is a warm bath and then they take a bath and decide what warm means, which is too cold because by the time they get in, warm has become luke-warm. Then they're too long to do anything fun in the bath, and the bubbles disappear and it's really quiet which will lead to sad thoughts because now you're cold, wrinkly, thinking too much and the water is magnifying your thighs.