Kafka

He stumbled into the bar hours after our scheduled time, his eyes beady and laminated with a fresh wetness. His pupils were there, and his irises, yes, he was alive as could be! But his eyes seemed as transparent as windowpanes -- as if he had hollowed himself out for the day, expecting the new world to fill him to the brim, and in the process, wring out his pains and shortcomings. He would be a glamarous caucophony of light and technology. Surely that old darkness of his would collapse to its knees, and he would laugh heartily at his young self -- the ridiculous, fearful boy he had been! I gestured awkwardly, brought him over to the table, where I'd already poured out a rum and coke. Even the tiny space between us glistened with light: it flattened along the table, bounced merrily around our glasses, diverted in the liquid, and popped between the shadows of our rumpled coats. Finally, I allowed myself to take the man in. He was dressed in bright colors; the yellows and oranges contrasted with the deep black wrinkles in his outfit so sharply he looked as if he were composed of fragments. His face, I could not tell you -- he thrashed his head about so violently I saw little other than a blur. At every sound, he would jump and look.

"So what do you think about it?" I asked, humored easily by the author, just as strange as his books. His responses were pithy -- they didn't match such an extravagant look.

"I think its' fit as much changing as it could into a century," he said. He sipped at the rum. His response was a content one. He wasn't, however, a content man. We continued our drinking in silence. I knew he would continue talking, as his skin reddened. And he did.

"Those goddamn moving stars you've got in the air," he started. "I thought we'd begun to harbor some sort of alien civilization! That they were dropping another kind on us, or some secret serum -- began scrutinizing every man woman and child I ran into! Until some good soul told me those were human too, I was right set to believe -- why -- humanity as I'd known it had ceased to exist! That we had become infected..."

He poured himself another drink. I watched him as he melted.

"But it was something worse ... we hadn't been infected...no... we rotted! By our own merit we rotted! It is terrible to have something taken from you. But it is worse when the taking is fair! When it is your fault the thing is gone! And lord, it is our fault, no one else's, that we are gone. I have not felt..." his voice cracked, "I have not felt that human love here still...not once." He hadn't felt it ever, he thought, remembering his father.

His rambling began to bore me. I poured myself another glass, pretended to listen. I thought of my own tragedies as he wept. Before his eyes, I began to grow little legs. My pupils overtook my eyes.

Like this, everyone in the cafe shrank and scuttled. Franze alone remained in his body, dead yet again, the bugs scrambling hungrily over what seemed like a corpse.