The Abbreviated Kafka
By Ryan Griffith
Kafka is born. You can trace his origins back to smoke, the stillness of staircases, the pallid sleep of bloodless dreamers. As a child Kafka visits Florentine dyers to concoct a different race of blue. A blue stolen from hemophiliacs, the domes of ancient czars. He sips from vats of color, each of his teeth a masterpiece.
Kafka does not marry. Instead, Kafka falls in love with an unpublished maid, the ripple of her spine like a creature breaching the surface of a tranquil sea. He feels the doves of her hands on his skin, his body a hunger mansion of malachite, verdigris, buckthorn, nettle.
Kafka goes on vacation. Darkness gathers at the railway station, preparing to board. It brings eyeliner, keys, a list of demands. Kafka visits all the theme parks of the moon, collecting tiny spoons.
Kafka goes on strike. I am only a piston in the night machine, he writes. Kafkas of the world unite.
About the Author
Ryan Griffith’s work has appeared in Best Microfiction, Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions, and elsewhere. He runs a multimedia narrative installation in San Diego called Relics of the Hypnotist War.
