Things have suddenly gone dreadfully wrong! Astronomers are predicting that asteroids will rain down upon Earth and extinguish life as we know it. You are deciding how you will spend your last day on this planet. What will you do? Where will you be? Who, if anyone, would you want to be with? How will you celebrate the amazing beauty, the wonderfulness of your life in its last moments?

You have just completed the first draft of your 399-page autobiography. Your literary agent flips opens your manuscript to page 200 and gasps at what she reads. What incident in your life is on that page?

I will plant some dream seeds in the name of Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa from white minority rule and served as his country’s first black president. Here are some things I would like to see spring forth from my seeds:

In ancient times Chinese poets would seat themselves along a winding stream and watch wooden winged cups filled with wine float by them. When a cup arrived before a poet, he would be expected to drink the wine and improvise a poem. You are one of these poets and the wooden cup has just floated to you. What is the short, simple poem you improvise?

You have the ability to write a special thought in words that were never before uttered or used by anyone- they are words that you have created in your most personal moments and which capture your secret self. You are able to use the alphabet in ways that no one else has done before. What are the new words you use? What secret messages do they convey?

By the power of your vivid imagination, you are able to speak with a character from a favorite book whom you loved or admired. What are the kinds of things you want to say to or ask this character? What do you think his or her response would be to you? Perhaps for one day you could even live the life of the character you liked so much. Who would you choose and what would this life be like?