Instructions on Calming Allergies

Thanks to Julio Cortázar

Ralph Michael Chiaia

Pick your nose. That's the first way to clear the path, then you blow it. First you have got to give that congestion some room. Imagine congestion on the dance floor of a club, trying to get its sticky groove on, saying, "Give a brother room!" You see?

Don't lie down. Sit or stand up. Now, if possible, get laid. This step is quite important. Once that blood starts rushing down to genitals, those sinuses open up. When you let go, some of that painful pressure should be gone.

If getting laid is improbable, lay oneself (or one's self, if you grammarians prefer). If male, upon semen batch, notice its similarity with mucous. If female, do the same, however no like word to "semen batch" seems to exist. Tell that to the gynecocracy.

Press on your nose. Put middle finger and thumb right on the ridge of the nose above the nostrils. You will feel bone. Press in and up (hold at least five (5) seconds & up to one (1) minute). When you let go, some of that painful pressure should be gone.

Notice the construction "should be" used in this manual. Although certain problems should be gone, they probably won't be. In such cases:

Yell & whine. Break something. But make sure you don't cry, because crying aggravates said passageway.

Take hot shower. Blow nose in shower. Wipe blood & mucous from hand. If they don't go directly, kick blood and mucous down drain. Get out of shower.

Then put cream or lotion on nose.

If this doesn't help, read short story by Chiaia to try and pass time.

What is Kiblat?

Ralph-Michael Chiaia

These girls, one with a long serpentine tongue and who let me see her naked, said these words to me. These girls from my high school. They weren't bad girls. Well, they were. But good bad. You know what I mean. The kind I wanted to drink with, get high with, have sex with. Good kind of bad. They were like that. That's what I heard. One was hot, too. I mean really hot. She gave me a piece of gum she was chewing one time, you know to throw it in a trash bin for her, but I saved it and tacked it on my wall like a trophy. Whenever I was near them or talked to them, they giggled. They said that word. Then giggled. One night I got them pretty drunk at my house. Then they disappeared. I walked in on them in our recreation room making out. I asked if they'd like to make a sandwich. They said no. Before I could get upset, the hot one left me with the other one. She let me do whatever I wanted with her. Her tongue was really long and pink—it came to a sharp angular tip. I have never seen another tongue again like that. Her eyes were enormous, like those statues of Shakti or Saraswati. Also she had a cleft on her chin that looked exactly like a miniature of her own ass. I had a great time with her, but my mind wandered to the hotter one. I was young.

Jump ahead.

Fourteen years have passed. Not much has happened in my life. Well, I got divorced once. Had about three different jobs. Maybe four. Lived in five or six different countries. Stubbed my toes hundreds of times, bit my lip in the thousands—goddamnit! Looked under "k" in many dictionaries in various languages. Had a few different girls. Ate many tacos, many kebabs, a lot of noodles; smoked many cigarettes, drank many different brands of beer; masturbated God only knows how many times.

Then, it's right there on the motel ceiling. A green and white sticker with black letters on the white center: Kiblat. Like “Keeble” or like I don't know what. Like nothing. Like those girls. Like that cleft chin that looked like her ass. I get that burning in my loins, now in that pleasure center deeper than the loins thinking of her cleft ass, no, thinking of “kiblat.” What is “kiblat”?

There it is, unique and indiscernible, like an ancient hieroglyph—a memory-emotion pictogram that I cannot decipher nor contemplate. Right there on the cracked motel ceiling. I can't take my eyes off of it even when Aisha, this new girl I'm thinking of getting serious with, is on top of me with all her goodness. She's bulbous in all the right, and a few wrong (but nobody's perfect), spots. Even when she pulls me up to suck on a very right part of her, I think, “kiblat.” I pull away from her and read it aloud: "Kiblat. What the fuck is ‘Kiblat?’"

"Forget it." Aisha pulls me on top of her. "Focus."

I roll off of her. "I can't until I find out what that means."

I move to India. I live in an Ashram, spending one week in total silence. In Tokyo, I do editing work and try to learn Japanese to no avail. Incidentally, Aisha and I no longer even email. I dream up an Internet marketing scheme while sunbathing on the beach in Thailand. I put all the money I saved in Japan into this foolproof scheme. I move to Korea broke and teach English. I meet a young Korean student who lures me with great legs and a wonderbra. I feel cheated by her wonderbra, but don't let that ruin everything. She opens her bag while laying on my couch naked, her little breasts perky. A Bahasa-English dictionary falls to the floor. I pick it up for her, it's open to "k". My eyes go straight to the word “Kiblat.”

It points you in the direction of Mecca.

Up the Park

Ralph-Michael Chiaia

I'm in the park again.

stone tigers roar at marble lovers

locked forever in icy embrace.

feline sexuality prowls—I dangle

thick cock at her. She says I'm disgusting

then her throat muscles are a ring

that won't come off a finger dying

to get wed. The slightest, most miniscule

movements coax the cream from me

into her, she grunts this guttural kind of

caterwaul, a kind of guggle,

her eyes go real wide, we freeze like that.

A man walks by, he may think I'm holding

a girl who just failed a test or broke up with

a boyfriend. He may think I'm letting her

palatine tonsils milk out the last drop of

my cumshot. I don't really care.