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1 – Start early in the morning. Put on a white shirt. Make sure that the day is grey and rainy. Remember that in winter you lose better. If you must lose in summer, choose an extremely hot day.
2 – In the previous days you have made sure to arrange at least two factors causing emotional stress. Just choose the ones that best suit your nature: the illness of a relative, the memory of making a fool of yourself. For some, the thought of the body that ages and decays might do just fine.
3 – Exit the house as always. Be a bit late. If you are habitually late, be later than usual. Exiting the hall, take a quick look at the coffee table with its pile of books, letters and bills that you have prepared earlier over at least six weeks. Have at least once the thought: “The key. I must not forget it.” But it must be fleeting.
4 – Make it one of those days when you throw yourself out of the house without having had time to look in the mirror. Ask yourself briefly about the state of your hair. Decide that at the next mirror you will have a quick check: you will forget that too.
5 – Pass by the front window of a travel agency with tropical posters.
6 – Walking in a downtown street crowded with pedestrians, call on your cell phone. Choose a difficult call: ask for the return of an old debt, break a relationship. Dial the wrong number once or twice. With a cheap ballpoint pen or even better with a fountain pen, taking notes during the call get yourself a small ink stain on the cuff of the white shirt you have prepared earlier.
7 – Only if the coffee bar is crowded, get in. At the counter, get very very close to whoever is speaking the loudest. When the girl hands you the coffee, start an argument: remind her that you have not asked for a macchiato. You have been in that coffee bar every day for six months, and just like this morning you have asked for an espresso, always a simple stupid regular espresso, and whenever it is served it is an espresso lungo, or a macchiato, or a cappuccino. While you speak, look at the customers closest to you, one by one. Look at them intently, making them feel that you are expecting them to intervene in your aid. But if they seem like starting to do so, discourage them by turning your head the other way.
8 – Give yourself a little time to eat; eat too much.
9 – Step outside. Move your gaze upwards. A woman in her forties, with disheveled hair and terribly sad eyes will appear from a second-story window. That is the signal.
10 – Search through your pockets: you have lost the key. Try all your pockets, not forgetting the shirt pocket even if worn over a sweater, trying to put some urgency in your movements. With your hands resting on the outside of the pockets, keeping your elbows wide, cast a look, in as much disbelief as you can muster, right and then left, mentally counting to five. Rummage through your back pockets in the same order and at the same speed, then again a third time in random order and faster (women now should empty their purse on a surface not bigger than a chair), muttering under your breath, how could this have happened?