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your shoulders.
    Then tell them, faintly, “I heard screaming.”
    Men with a history of violence live in fear of retribution.
    Your new host will be the first to depart in the direction of alleged screaming.
    Your Designated Mate’s glance toward the dock, far below, may reveal that his interests are not fully aligned with your new host’s.
    His attention to his handset may portend that your diversion has run amok, undermining the transaction you meant to capture.
    Among the violent, there is always a plan for escape.
    27
    It is reasonable to hope that a backlit screen will distract its user from a camera flash at some slight distance.
    Move close to the sketches you wish to photograph, allowing them to fill your field of vision.
    Hold very still.
    A flash is far more dramatic in total darkness.
    An epithet in another language, followed by “What the fuck was that?,” means you overestimated your Designated Mate’s handset absorption.
    A bright, throbbing total blindness means that you neglected to cover your non-camera eye.
    Distance yourself from agency in the flash by crying out, truthfully, “I can’t see!”
    It is hard to safely navigate a clifftop promontory at high speed while blind.
    It is hard to defer said navigation when your Designated Mate is forcefully yanking your hand.
    A distant buzz presages an approaching speedboat.
    Cooler air and a downward slope indicate that you are now below the cliff’s edge.
    Trying to negotiate a crumbling wooded path in a state of blindness (and heels) will soon lead to tripping and collapsing.
    Receding downhill footfalls indicate that you’ve overtaxed your limited value to your Designated Mate.
    A sense of helpless disorientation may prevent you from doing much more than sitting there in the dirt.
    28
    Variegation in the textures around you is a first sign that your temporary blindness has begun to fade.
    Temporary blindness sharpens one’s appreciation for not being blind.
    In the aftermath of blindness, the accretion of objects around you may have an almost sensual quality.
    A boat departing at high speed will send a vibration trembling up through the soil.
    The knowledge that you are alone, without your Designated Mate, will settle upon you slowly and coldly.
    Each new phase of aloneness reveals that you were previously less alone than you thought.
    This more profound isolation may register, at first, as paralysis.
    If it soothes you to lie back in the dirt, then lie back.
    The moon shines everywhere.
    The moon can seem as expressive as a face.
    Human beings are fiercely, primordially resilient.
    In uneasy times, draw on the resilience you carry inside you.
    Recall that the mythical feats you loved to read about as a child are puny beside the accomplishments of human beings on earth.
    29
    The presence of another person can be sensed, even when not directly perceived.
    The discovery of another person at close range, when you thought you were alone, may occasion fear.
    Leaping from a supine into a standing posture will induce a head rush.
    “I see you. Come out” must be uttered calmly, from the Readiness Position.
    If you show fear, make sure that it isn’t the fear you actually feel.
    When you’ve expected a man, the appearance of a woman may be shocking.
    Despite all that you know and are, you may experience that shock as a relief.
    “Why are you here?,” uttered by your new host’s alpha beauty, is likely hostile.
    Respond to abstract questions on the most literal level: “He left without me.”
    “Bastard,” muttered bitterly, suggests familiarity with the phenomenon of being left behind.
    Sympathy from an unexpected source can prompt a swell of emotion.
    Measure the potential liability of shedding tears before you let them fall.
    The perfumed arm of a beauty may pour strength and hope directly into your skin.
    30
    A lavish clifftop villa may look even more miragelike on a second approach.
    Sustaining an atmosphere of luxury in a remote place requires