You will start to build your 6-ft. lime green marble toilet only to find the vapid next-door neighbours gawking and yawping as they lounge on their deck. You may find that your 6-ft. toilet should have been 8 ft. tall because the surrounding area slopes away from the gentle acquiescence of your yard. Maybe you should have used pastel lavendar marble, after the washrooms at Hôtel du Nord in Paris. Either way, do not waste money, marble or thought syrup by building a receptacle that doesn’t suit your personal equilibrium. Don’t forget, it’s good to be alive! The smell of buttered toast at breakfast, afternoons spent spelling ‘bees’, the faithful rustling of the table cloth before the shriek sounds off for dinner– you want to seal these essences in pure, fragrant mind-bubbles. Building your toilet will drive all unnecessary, unsavoury people away.

To further determine how to build the commode, consider how high a disturbance it needs to be to others. Have a helper walk around the perimeter with a cardboard screen cut to the height of your proposed construction. Sitting and standing, follow the view above the cardboard as it’s moved to determine the amount of annoyance it will actually provide. Hire a somnambulist to assess the potential dangers of hidden fumblages on the various access pathways and tunnels. Consider some shubbery too; daydream hedges, honey thickets, You will need a small enclosure with a barbed-hair witchlock at the base to ward off any trespassers. Once people recognize the déjà vu value, privacy and sheer spretzzatura it provides, they will want it as their own. They will steal it, and give it a name—their very own name, Richard.

Diana Adams is an Edmonton, Alberta–based writer with work published in a variety of journals. Her third book of poetry, Hello Ice was published by BlazeVOX Books. BlazeVox also published her novella To The River. Diana has three poems in Best American Experimental Writing 2016.