Guide for the Perplexed

By Laurie Blauner

I was my hollow self, hands clutched around my arterial neck, squeezing spasmodically. I was tired of all those deadly little assignments. I was taking my time, taking too long for my children, who fervently believed I was already too old. The odor in my bathroom was chemical and astringent. The mirror said Come in. Stand on your own. My illness glimmered.

So I defiantly traveled. I attached a lopsided pear to each day. I unapologetically ached. I wore large sunglasses to every airport, boarding inconspicuous planes. I only visited the most retrievable countries, ones I could keep inside myself. The one I landed in had jagged streets that reminded me of my scars. Enormous cross-legged buildings surrounded me. Streetlights slumped over as though they were flowers losing their petals. Cars slid by slowly, the native people were unhurried, colorful, and careless. The city’s criminals passed by singly and in groups with their arrogant faces, crushed hats and jackets, lit cigarettes, splintered girlfriends, quick hands.

I picked one who was alone. He wore a black shirt. I said, “As I watch my feelings creep out, I miss who I used to be.”

Music played around us. He laughed loudly. His friends left. A guitar and thumping drum evaporated into a warm breeze. His fuzzy foreign language brushed against my clothes. We moved into an alley where the songs were interrupted for a moment by the buildings and then continued. I reached deep into my pocketbook while I balanced on my cane, feeling as though there was a mouth on either side of me. I signaled at him with a sharp restaurant knife I had borrowed. The criminal’s face wavered, fell, then his upturned lips showed themselves underneath his moustache. He began to move toward me.

“I want to reach through myself,” I explained. The knife and I grew closer to him. I wasn’t sure he understood. I ineffectually pointed the knife at his throat, jabbing the air.

He smiled smoothly, took his time, jabbering strange words. He waved his hands.

“Money is a disease.” I could smell onions frying, meat charring somewhere. Heat from the walls of the buildings lingered between us. Flies hovered in anticipation. I looked upward. Blue sky peeked between the roofs, caressed the bones that spread like plants to my shoulders. I threw down some money and the knife. I pointed. “I pray, discuss things with the dead.” I would lie down on the dirty pavement if my bones wouldn’t crack, if my legs weren’t so sore. My white hair, like wings, flew everywhere. “My children are too soft and I forget their names.” An airplane flew by overhead. Another criminal crept by us, staring, in a checkered suit and straw hat.

“I can’t do it myself.” I raised my head to the sky.  The new man ran away, sputtering something I didn’t understand.

I think the man in the black shirt said, “Fear is too easy.”

I fell down onto my knees, painful as broken glass, made myself visible.

Laurie Blauner is the author of three novels, The Bohemians (2013), Infinite Kindness (2007), and Somebody (2002), and six books of poetry.  Her most recent chapbook of poetry was published by dancing girl press.  A novella called Instructions for Living was published in 2011 by Main Street Rag.  She has received a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship as well as Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, 4Culture, and Artist Trust grants and awards.  She was a resident at Centrum in Washington state and was in the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2007.  Her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Georgia Review, American Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, and many other magazines.  A new book of poetry is forthcoming from What Books Press.  Her web site is www.laurieblauner.com.