5

Tally:
16 hairpins
45 rubberbands
1 loose tooth
3 fingernails, torn off, hidden in coat pocket
1 busted lens, which makes:
2 suns, noonhigh
16 trees
4 squirrels
infinite grasses
18 dead branches, fallen
2 sets bird bones, incomplete
random torn feathers
2 dead campfire sites
which makes, in reality,
a repetitious thought that divides everything in half

Preparation:
Consult collective consciousness to see how people sharpened stones or sticks without any tools. How to make arrowheads. How to whittle with stone.

Note to self:
Next life, carry a knife. Or I could, in this one, find that fellow I set out looking for. He carries one.

Instructions:
1. Who cares about eating. Not you.
2. You care about sound. Believe this.
3. Bend 5 hairpins in half, back & forth, back & forth, until they break. You’ll then have 10 keys for your thumb piano.
4. Put the rest back in your pocket. There’ll be more uses later.
5. Find a straight branch, wrist’s width.
6. You don’t need a sound box. You don’t need a sound box. You don’t need a sound box.
7. Who cares about eating.
8. Line up the hairpins on the branch, hold them in place with some rubber bands.
9. Play your thumb piano. Listen closely, because you have no sound box.
10. Sing.
11. Who cares about eating.