How to Draw a Map of the Territory
- Start at the point on the paper where your bootprint has torn the edge.
- 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.
- East where your mother went.
- Dig the pen into the paper. Hold your breath and turn south again. Your hand should be shaking: these are, after all, the fjords.
- Your pen will dry soon, your forearm lock. Abandon cartography, which Borges tells us is folly.
- Leave the map for your brother.
- It will take him some time to understand.
Published on
Friday, March 19, 2010, at 7:00 am.