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How to Draw a Map of the Territory

  1. Start at the point on the paper where your bootprint has torn the edge.
  2. Draw a straight line at 5Ï€/3 radians for exactly one second, then turn to connect the dots of an imaginary constellation (try Cassiopeia). Stop, turn, head due east.
  3. East where your mother went.
  4. Dig the pen into the paper. Hold your breath and turn south again. Your hand should be shaking: these are, after all, the fjords.
  5. Your pen will dry soon, your forearm lock. Abandon cartography, which Borges tells us is folly.
  6. Leave the map for your brother.
  7. It will take him some time to understand.