Don't ask him if he remembers you from two nights ago, or the night before that. That was not memory, it was only a dream. Even if you want to touch your hand to his cheek like you did that night, restrain yourself. He will not be compelled to hold your hand in his.

Take a bottle and whisper into it all the sorrow and tragedy that you have carried with you the past two years. Cork it well and bury it in the shade of the narra tree. Wait thirteen more years before you dig it up again.

When he asks you to play a game of chess, you will demur and say that the last time you played was when you were ten, after reading Alice Through The Looking Glass. You were desperately looking for the Red Queen in your pieces, but failing to find her, concentrated on making your horses zigzag through the squares instead. He will take this as a sign of weakness, another indication of the basic incompatibility in this quasi-relationship. It would be in your best interest to leave now, despite knowing no one in this city and having only a vague idea of where you are. Stop trying to save him. Just leave.

She will be monster incarnate but you will still want to take a piece of her cheek and bite into it like you would a crisp apple. Almost a mannequin in stillness, once she opens her mouth, you will be reminded of the women at the fishmarket. You will tell her that you love her and she will bare this confession to the world as a sign of your foolishness. If you stay, wounds will bleed and fur will fly.

You will find yourself surrounded by people whose words you do not understand. They will laugh loudly, they will scream in unison. Their hands will move almost as quickly as a firefly's wings. They will bid you to eat and drink with them, as they pour alcohol, lime, sugar and crushed ice into a clear glass bowl. If you want to be able to leave this place someday, politely decline their offer. Otherwise, the drink is sweet to taste and will fill your mouth with cotton.

In response to the question, "where shall we go tonight?", your companion will bring you into a house at the center of an unfamiliar neighborhood. In this closed off patio, in this town halfway between Rio and Fortaleza, people come to drink and talk. Music blares from an old stereo at the corner. You will be one of the few people whose skin color is not coffee. Surrounded by low houses with their tin roofs, you will nervously ask your companion what to do. She will say, "Buy everyone a beer." Heed her advice.

Over sushi at a Japanese restaurant run by Vietnamese immigrants, he will ask you how you feel when he takes your hand. You will reply that it is familiar, comforting. You will not mention that whatever euphoria you once experienced at the mere accidental brush of his skin on yours has since dissipated, like the tendrils of tea vapors disappearing into air.

She will spill coffee on you as her labrador retriever squirms out of her grasp, chasing after an errant squirrel. She will apologize profusely. Her eyes will be brown and her smile, enchanting. Remember to smile back, and pretend the coffee did not scald your delicate skin.

The tree's branches wither and crack. It's roots grow deep and strong under your house. There is life there that you are ignoring. It whispers at night, it speaks to you in your dreams.

A vision will visit you each night. The same face, sometimes racked with pain, sometimes suffused with joy.

You will receive a message. Refrain from holding it up to the light and trying to read the secret words written in invisible ink that you believe it contains. Do not turn it this way and that, imagining that there is a hidden shape that the paper will form if the folds are turned a certain way. Only the surface counts. Consider them facts, instead of subtle indication.

At the first sign of sickness, make yourself a cup of lemongrass tea. Leave the ginseng in its tin, and the bright blue pills in their cases. Tea is all you need.

Cups will overflow. Colors will be raised high. Honor and glory await. Accolades strewn like wildflowers on your path.

Beware young men with blue green eyes and a soft, low voice. Keep your heart safe, your body still.

We interrrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you what I would want to get in my fortune cookie:

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. -- Joseph Campbell

Short, sweet and good.

At the corner of your neighborhood cafe, you will find a small table with a pink teapot on it and a white vase with a pink gerbera sticking out. Take your seat and wait. In a moment, a man with a painted clown face will sit down and ask for your name. Tell him your name is Adelle and that you have been waiting for a day and a half. He will bow ever so slightly and place a copper coin in your hand. Keep this coin till the day that you find yourself in a strange city, hungry, knowing no one. Deposit this coin in the next pink and white striped vending machine that you see. In exchange for this copper coin, you will receive your fortune.

After suffering under the gaze of two siamese cats sitting in a bay window, you will feel an urgent need to get a pet. Carp need running water. Dogs need space. Turtles are bad luck.

You will encounter an almost forgotten face. It will cause you to catch your breath. Brace yourself for the memory of this person's skin and scent. A streetcorner kiss. How you once loved. After you have given yourself over to these memories, fortify yourself with the words he used when saying goodbye. Do not forget the pain.

At the height of a high stakes mahjong game that has been going on for ten hours in the back room of Consuelo's Mortuary and Funeral Home, Don Emilio Latagon will bet his old stone house in the center of Manila against Manuel Guerrero. Mr. Guerrero, having already put his shoe repair business into the pot, will have no choice but to offer up his seventeen year old daughter with her famous grey eyes to match Don Emilio's bet. At the next hand, Don Emilio will pick a flower tile, useless for his impending siyete pares hand. At his turn, Mr. Guerrero picks a three bamboo to complete an escalera. Despite luck saving his daughter and business, Mr. Guerrero's only visible sign of elation will be a slight smile. By the door stand Don Emilio's bodyguards and their unlicensed pistols. The only sound now comes from the muffled cacophony of the guests at the wake outside.

You will have to go to work tomorrow. Sorry about that.