How to Live

art by the author

by Helen Hofling

I subscribed to all the lifestyle magazines for advice on how to live. They have many useful tips, like wearing shearling to cultivate a Nordic sense of warmth, and contentment. I can’t afford shearling, but I fill up my browser tabs with aspirations. The magazines reveal secret regimens for a lustrous shell. They diagram which postures will help me stay happy and which postures will help me grow thin. They tell me the right kind of tealeaves to buy. They tell me how to read them. 

The magazines recommend that I hang prisms from the window frames, injecting rainbow energy into my living space. I order ten pounds of prisms and string them all over. I walk up and down the hall, waiting for light to pass through me in a pleasant way, shoulders back, belly tightened, smiling like an idiot. They encourage playing Mongolian throat singing, very loud, and I do so, flinching—what will the neighbors think? 

The most important thing, the magazines say, is to cultivate a hobby—ironing or horticulture, for example. Who can greet the day properly lacking sharply pressed trousers, bright green leaves? What’s a life without passion? Without gluten-free pastry making and séances, saltwater fish tanks and the flying trapeze? I resolve to become an amateur sleuth, a pastime promising diligent sidekicks and commanding outerwear. These days every decision comes with a shopping list. I order a sleuth toolkit, next-day delivery, and line my bookcases with detective stories and true crime. Lucky for me, the genre is having a moment. Lucky for me, my upstairs neighbor is almost certainly a murderer. 

I take my sleuthing seriously. I snap selfies peering through a magnifying glass and check cold case message boards. Something pounds against my ceiling. I observe my surroundings and take diligent notes. I hear a thud. Strange packages begin arriving for my upstairs neighbor. They come from places like “retailworld.com” and “Roy’s Warehouse,” I note, with suspicion. There are new boxes in the stairwell almost every day. 

I read up on serial killers and learn that most have preferred physical types. Ted Bundy loved pansy-eyed young women with shiny brown hair parted down the middle. Throughout the night I hear whaling from my neighbor’s apartment. I can’t make out words so I log the times. I don’t worry about the darkness getting in. The magazines assure me that my prisms create a barrier. My neighbor drags heavy objects up and down the stairs at all hours. I deep condition my hair and start wearing a center part.

I update my personal development blog as the case progresses. My neighbor vacuums the crime scene for an hour every morning, destroying evidence. I wonder what he does with all the bodies. I listen to the vacuum droning above me and watch pieces of rainbow travel across the room and disappear. 

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