Puzzled (Canto 3)
collaged by and of perypatetik authors1
9. Aesthetic (Omniscient narrator)
The mind of a pragmatist runs differently than that of a romantic.
Unaware of these different types, Angelika exited Münchener Hauptbahnhof, pushing her small Spinner Suitcase with her right Hand and gripping the Handbag on her Shoulder with her left. It was only a ten-minute Walk home. Her Thoughts drifted to someone who constantly sought more:
Elisabeth leans back on her plush outdoor lounger. Miles and miles of shiny glass windows wink at her as the sun begins to set. From her penthouse, she can see London’s buildings and roads sprawled out below.3
Self-determination: I have achieved what I wanted. The plan panned out. It worked. I’m happy.
Elisabeth, obviously, has everything. But when her mother-in-law dies, she wants more. She wants to sell the house in Stonewall, rather than see her husband give it to his brother.4
Consumption: It is on my to-do list. I did Germany in 2025. How many pages do you read per day? How many books per year?
Pedro accepts experience; Elisabeth wants to possess more.
Yet it is not just Pedro’s existentiality that severs his mind from Elisabeth’s materialism. It’s also the expectation of a different, better, exciting future. Already financially secure and superior, Elisabeth hopes to become even more so.
Success: It is the only benchmark of human worth. An upward trajectory is the only trajectory. It bolsters Elisabeth’s self-importance. Without it, she would be even more depressed.
Expectation motivates pragmatists. And it motivates a high regard for education, achievements and networking. What is this expectation? Why does one set a future point in relation to their present one and strive for that future one? To justify one’s existence? To avoid thoughts of mortality? For fun?
Obligations and networks: Angelika needs to go out for drinks with her colleague in case she is promoted. Enjoy making small talk with the cashier in the corner store, but not with your partner. Fawn over high potentials.
10. A chat (Angelika and Yuri)
Munich, Germany and New York, USA
What does she want? That is what Angelika asked herself after pondering Elisabeth. Or did she have to answer the Question of what she should do first?
Angelika’s Shrink told her to communicate better with her Boyfriend and Colleagues. She should not be afraid to articulate her Concerns. It was a Platitude. Nothing new to her. The Importance of Communicating and Articulating had been bantered about on the Fringes of her Circles since her School Days. Although distaining it as American, she did it. Not that much changed. If anything, it caused her to feel drained and suffer from more intense Migraines the next Day. Sure, on the Surface something welled up briefly. But underneath – same old, same old. In particular, it drained her to talk so much at the Shrink. The Session would have been more effective if her Therapist spoke at least half the time, like her Sister had just done on the Phone.
She texted Yuri. He – and the textual (not oral) form of Communication – occupied some middle Ground. Their Past didn’t hurt either. She hadn’t reached a sentimental Age yet, but Seeing a Text from him or sending one to him never – or nearly never – irritated her. And generally she sensed some slight tingle in a part of her Head that was rarely stimulated.
He was not in the mood for her messages. Familiar with Angelika’s abstract problems, he disparaged them as decadent. If survival was at stake, all her psychosis would dissolve like the faux intelligence of a motormouth when countered. When no one objected or resisted, industry-programmed thoughts penetrated, festered and soon flourished. He had real problems. Not one, but two. At the very least. He had to work and hide his partner – work two jobs just to squeeze out a little extra; hide his partner to shield her from detention centers and possible deportation.
I just got on a buzz, he mistyped in annoyance.
Then he “listened” patiently. Or pretended by keeping the chat open. He had learned what to do: let the other person finish what they were saying, allow for a few-seconds pause to give the impression that the weighty words were sinking in.
Then he recounted his friend Asyran’s story about Julie:
Expectation does not have to take Elisabeth’s form.
Julie enters a castle in the Syunik mountains of Armenia where her second self is sitting in the corner depressed. Julie saw a gap between herself and her peers: so she learned how to accept fear, welcome anxiety, acknowledge negative emotion in the expectation that she would close that gap.5
If you’ve been following Armine Asryan’s stories of Julie, you will know that she is a romantic – never quite managing to conform to her middle-class peers, always relapsing to the fringe, but relentlessly relishing the vicissitudes of living.
Process: Forget about the end – “if you’re forty and nothing hurts, then you’re dead.”6 Rain is dripping through the ceiling – place another bucket there to catch the water.7 It’s a rollercoaster this life of ours.8
“What does that have to do with migraines?” Angelika asked.
Yuri responded elliptically.
“I have another one from Narantsogt,” he volunteered.
She didn’t get it.
Ganbat and his wife Chimgee are riding to the supermarket in one of the private “gypsy” cabs you hail on the side of the road informally. Ganbat is in the mood to talk: “I mean we lived in the ger district before that, in a yurt handed down from my uncle on the plot of land that we rented. In the beginning we couldn’t help but marvel at the modern amenities, you know? Especially the shower stall, which was a welcome change of pace from the embarrassing-in-hindsight traditional way of washing. Think about it? Carrying canisters of water from the nearby water station, standing on a boat-shaped nickel tub and pouring stove-heated water over yourself in this day and age?”
“I just did that this morning,” the driver deadpanned nonchalantly, and Chimgee clasped Ganbat’s hands to make him stop talking.9
Angelika suspected that Yuri was bloviating in his buzz.
Yuri recalled her “trip” to Johannesburg with the VR-glasses. “What did Sarah-Leah say about Jules Street?”
But one thing remains true. Jules Street is still a buzzing, dynamic, happening street where chancers and dreamers become small business owners or gamble away their life savings on a good idea that went bad. Their grit and tenacity can end in success or failure. But these are the hardworking men and women of Joburg, who for over a century have built their homes, fed their families and educated their children, often in the most trying circumstances. This Jules Street never was and never will be the street of the rich and powerful. It’ll never be filled with the soft money made in corporate offices in Sandton. Jules Street is the everyday person’s street. It is sparse of beauty but rich in human ingenuity. Its buildings are worn, tired and buckling under the need of long overdue maintenance. But still they stand. These paint-peeled walls, just like the people who work and live in them, are the foundations upon which this entire city is built.10
“You have some kind of buzz,” Angelika declared.
“I don’t have a buzz; I’m on the bus.” And Yuri thought of this quintessential process, not faster, but more peaceful, profound, poetic than any other form of transportation. As Molchanova put it in A Bus Ride:
I am addressed by a woman asking about her stop. I explain that she will have to get off at the stop after the next one. She can’t hear me properly, so I speak up. The driver, overhearing, butts in and says: “It is five speed bumps away.” I chuckle, but the woman looks puzzled. “We’ve just crossed one sleeping policeman, and there are five more and then it’s your stop,” he explains. You can always feel it when a bus rides over a speed bump, as you bounce up and down.11
(…to be continued…)
Footnotes
1. Framework narrative composed by Angelika Friedrich and Henry Whittlesey; interwoven narrative written by Sarah-Leah Pimentel, Adriana Uribe, Veronika Groke, Lauren Voaden, Armine Asryan, Narantsogt (Natso) Baatarkhuu, Svetlana Molchanova, Jonay Quintero Hernández, Alejandra Baccino Uberti
2. All blue text indicates a hyperlink to the original story by a perypatetik contributor or to the theoretical treatise (Peripatetic Alterity). The stories are published in print as part of the transadaptation series (volumes 1-6) and are also available at the perypatetik.net website under Perception by Country.
3. For full story, see Voaden, The Opportunist.
4. Ibid.
5. For full story, see Asryan, Transcendece.
6. For full story, see Molchanova, Many Happy Returns.
7. For full story, see Uribe, La Lluvia.
8. For full story, see Casas, A Girl Pedaling.
9. For full story, see Baatarkhuu, Priorities.
10. For full story, see Pimentel, An Unexpected Trip Down Memory Lane
11. For full story, see Molchanova, A Bus Ride
Transadaptation Volume 7 – Via Ellipsis – Continuation of Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: An Unexpected Trip Down Memory Lane – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)
February: Blow-up – Veronika Groke (Austria)
March: Futuros Murguistas – Alejandra Baccino Uberti (Uruguay)
April: The Nomenclature Man – Paulius Limantas (Lithuania)
May: Amanecerá y veremos – Adriana Uribe (Colombia)
June: Finding Light in Yerevan – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
July: The Last Judgement – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
August: Puzzled – a collaged nivola by and of perypatetik authors (International)
September: Second Steps – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
October: New Normality – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
November: Beyond Comprehension – Rahaf Konbaz (Syria)
December: Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Worm? (Parts I and II) – Narantsogt (Natso) Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 6: Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2025)
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Background photo: Munich, Germany – The street refracted – Jahanzeb Ahsan (Unsplash)
Inserted photos (top left clockwise): 1. Austria – The village – Sven D (Unsplash); 2. Goris, Armenia – Hung out to dry – KrimKate (Shutterstock)-2; 3. Montevideo, Uruguay – Ramirez Beach – DFLC Multimedia Designer (Shutterstock); 4. New York City, USA – Chinatown – Viktorija Demjanenko (Unsplash); 5. Karoo, South Africa – Roadside padstal – mehdi (Shutterstock); 6. New York City, USA – This is your god – Ludivine Indigo (Unsplash); 7. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – From the car – Keleny (Shutterstock); 8. Tenerife, Spain – Embedded in the mountains – Dynamoland (Shutterstock); 9. Saratov, Russia – Chernyshevsky Square – Fire-fly (Shutterstock); 10. Bogota, Columbia – Criss-crossing – Delaney Turner (Unsplash)