I had confused nakedness with humility.  This affected my love of costume and the necessity of a mask.  I am no longer afraid.

 

I assumed honesty should be convenient.  Exposure to radiation in small doses.  I am no longer afraid.

 

Indecision is a crippling disease.  I have experienced the seven forms of ambiguity.  I am of one mind.

 

From now on each morning I will administer my own last rites.  Self-sacrifice as atonement for real and imagined sins.  It is also the highest form of masturbation.  I am no longer afraid in fact I am filled with a new exultation.

 

 

    PART II

 

On the first morning I confessed that I cannot accept that all beautiful women will not love me.  I have a horror of numerical futility.  I crossed myself not once but many times. 

 

On the second morning I confessed my fear of the words knowing full well the world only grants each person one. I immediately rejected prophet though I clearly envision my downfall.  I ran through the list of potential candidates which the world has offered me becoming enraged at my limited choice.  I genuflected with precision and picked my word from the hat at the foot of the altar.

 

On the third morning I opened the crumpled bit of paper which still bore the traces of the fortune cookie.  Oracles for the eighties tainted by oriental inscrutability.

 

On the fourth morning I confessed I was in possession of a secret.  It filled me with a strange new confidence.  I am no longer afraid.

 

I was slightly sinister on the fifth morning.  I had discovered my new mode of destruction.  I confessed that power made me vulnerable.  I no longer confuse nakedness with humility.  

 

The sky was gray on the sixth morning.  I found the absence of shadows reassuring.  I took comfort in diffuse light. 

 

The morning of the seventh day made me aware of the passage of time.  I confessed my receding hairline and that my knee was hurt and would not mend.  I confessed dizzy spells and pounding heart.  I knew my secret was more about dying than how to live.  Possession of the secret has made me unafraid.

 

Always  wary of  scripted  behaviour on the seventh day I did not rest.  I spoke aloud and paced.  I examined the pattern of the wallpaper and the design in the rug.  I leafed through books and magazines callng it all work which is part of the secret.  I confessed that the integration of my indulgences is a religious experience.

 

The first week of my awakening is ended.  I am unaware of how long it took.  Clocks and calendars have become foreign to me.  It is more convenient to measure speeding light.  It occurs to me the first week took a long time in the way measured by the others.   Perhaps it took ten years. --