I have placed several obstacles on the stairs. They are there to weed out the poor climbers. I wouldn’t want anybody unsteadfast to knock on my door. So ignore the twenty dollar bill you will see on the bottom. Bending over will cause you to somersault ceaselessly in the air. It will always be exactly three feet from your hand. And afterwards don’t whisper anything in the little ear. I put it there to listen to people’s secrets — to report any unheard flatteries someone might have mumbled. But it hears only desperation, anguishes. Even the most heroic people have said “I hurt” to it. I guess it is one of my failures — a magnet for all your insecurities. On the next step I have left a completely random decoding device. Most people are stopped here. They can’t resist putting their money into it. “What does it mean? What does it mean?” they ask. In return, obscenities are hurled at them — recipes from chili cans, old detergents, and chromosomes unaltered. (So I lost my best friend the Fuller brush salesman.) In the middle of the stair there is a totem pole with a star on top. Don’t slash it. Everybody slashes. Especially the ones who got their crew cuts examined in the concentric circle unraveller. What happens if you slash it, is that quicksilver drips from it, and suddenly the weather changes. If you arrive in a flurry you will go home in a hurricane. Or a limousine. It makes no difference to the totem pole. It was carved from the blood of many dead pigs. The star is a very vain star. Attracted by the small uselessness of telescopes and then tied down. Most who pass by this step don’t make it to the mirror. Don’t stare in the mirror, whatever you do. For the mirror is also a telescope. All those shames — all those tiny zits and blemishes you thought were so far away from you — there they are, big as asteroids, fat, buck-toothed moons of you discharging and discharging. It is possible that having heard this you will tie your hands behind your back and look at it anyway just in passing, but the thing is, then you won’t be able to carry the pyramid. And I insist that you bring a pyramid because then if there’s a rather annoyed-looking blonde with me when you arrive you could just say, “O, I can’t stay long, I just dropped in to drop off the pyramid,” and throw it over the cliff and leave.