Wake

Misery is a sunset on a movie.  It’s sitting in your car, flipping through stations and having every  song sung by the Who, be about love or breakup.  Most achingly, its having your son cry in front of you for the only ten seconds you get to see or hear from him in the :two weeks off” because his father created a situation where it’s all on you for his responsibility in the eyes of your son.  It’s not being able to think and when you do, only being able to think about how much you ache.  It’s the pathetic nausea of trying to have a glass of wine in the middle of the day on an empty stomach when all you want to do Is not be in so much pain.  It’s not having anyone to talk to who would understand when the only person who would understand is the same person that all the stupid car-radio songs remind you of.  It’s coming to the brink of your dream job just as the shit hits the fan even harder than ever.  It’s not being able to sleep and finding no peace.  It’s putting a price tag on the relationship you are mad at not working out.  It’s the feeling of alone covered in prickleyness so nobody else can get iin and feasibly make it that much worse.  It’s the scream in your belly that doesn’t have any freedom to let loose and trying to swallow it with anything that might possibly quiet the reverberations.  It’s the 30 pounds gained forgotten when there’s no food in the house and a large portion of Chinese take-out that should last three meals but is swallowed before the opening credits of a movie have finished.  It’s constipation of the heart compacted from holding it in.   Its looking in the mirror.  Its talking on the phone.  It’s in books, puzzles, and projects that only last a short time before becoming exhausting.  Its being broke with a shopping addiction.  Its not washing your hair and wanting to buy makeup that you don’t feel like putting on.  It’s post migraine insomnia that wants to punch a wall but lacks the energy to finish the swing.  It’s anger.  And  I’m all out of coping skills.

The Door

“Door? What door?” K. thought to himself. He waited until he was sure that the man’s light could no longer be seen, nor his footsteps heard. “I should find the woman, and retrace the mans directions. A door leads somewhere, and I’ll be happy if that someplace is out of here.” He walked towards’ the woman’s screams with his hands in front of his face. He was still afraid to turn on his lantern. Soon enough, he saw a faint light coming from the darkness. There were more squeaks and thuds coming from the direction of the woman.

“Oh no you don’t!” he heard a woman’s voice reply. “I’ll, why I’ll, I’ll kill you I will! I swear!” K. smiled as he realized that she had not yet noticed him and was instead talking to the rats. She screamed every time her foot successfully hit one. She looked up and screamed. “Shush, shush,” said K. calmly. He approached her to find that she was behind bars. He reached for her as to calm her. This startled her more so. Her fear of K. combined with the confusion of the rats, made the woman cry. K. realized that the woman was behind bars.

K. whispered to her, “Shush, it’s alright. Don’t cry. I’ll get you out of here, and we can escape together.”

“Who are you?” she sobbed. Her voice trembled though she tried to sound stern. The sound of fear was evident in her shaky voice. “Who are you, show yourself!”

“Shush, shush!” said K. “I will get you out of here, you can escape. I know how to get out of this labyrinth. That man mumbled a way out of here. I heard everything. Do you know where the man keeps the keys so that I can release you?”

“You, release me? Who are you? Are you a guard, an official? Who are you!” Her voice grew louder with her uncertainty.

“I am a friend.” replied K.

“What? A friend? More like a fellow prisoner. How do I know you are not responsible for your punishment? How did you escape? Talk to me! How did you escape? No, If you are what you say you are, you need to go back to your cell. They will know you are gone and come looking for you. They will find you! Go away! Leave! I will call the guards and distract them so that you can go back to your cell;  –guard! Guard!”

K. lit his lantern off of the one outside the woman’s cell. He realized that there was no use in trying to calm the woman, she was hysterical. In his fear, he made a run for it.

He ran, retracing the directions the guard had muttered. From a distance, K. saw a crack of light. As he got closer, he saw that this light outlined a door. K. dropped the lantern and ran as fast as he could towards the door. He turned the knob and slammed it behind him.

K. was blinded by the bright light. As his eyes adjusted to the change in light, he realized that he was familiar with his surroundings. K. was in the courthouse. K. turned around to look at the door he was now breathlessly standing in front of. On the door was a bronze inscription that read:

-Examining Magistrate-

K. slowly backed away from the ominous door, half expecting the man he saw to come bursting out of it. He needed to leave the courthouse. He buttoned his coat, wrapped his scarf around his face to deflect the anticipated cold, and put his gloves on his dry hands. He opened the door to outside, and did not look back until he returned home.

The Room

A slow, steady drip of water woke K. The droplets fell on his cheek, crawled behind his ear, and rested in a small puddle beneath his head. He sat up, moving his head from the dripping water’s path. As he shook off his unconsciousness, getting into a sitting position, he saw that his coat, hat, scarf, and gloves were all missing. His watch was also taken, as well as his shoes and socks. K. looked at his body and realized that he was in his under clothes, barely dressed at all.

K. looked about the room once again in an attempt to recognize his whereabouts. He was sure that he had never seen a room quite like it. He jumped up from his bed and stood on the cold floor. The bed was strange. It had belts and buckles and blood stained linens. K. felt his head where the bird had fallen to see if it were his own blood. He was surprised to find that there was hardly a bump, let alone any blood.

K. took a moment to fully survey the room in which he was. The place was extremely bright, on the boarder of blinding. Lights hung from the ceiling at each rounded corner of the room. K. had a clear view of his whereabouts, though he had no understanding of how he got there. There were no visible doors. The room had rounded edges. The floor became the wall, reaching up about four feet. From that point to the ceiling, there were glass walls. Other than the glass walls, everything was a luminous white.

There was no light on the other side of these glass structures, creating a blackened effect. “This reminds me of one of those cages they keep animals in,” said K. to himself. “Anyone can watch the animal, though the animal has no idea he’s being watched.”

Despite the cold floor and even colder atmosphere, the room was actually quite comfortable in temperature. K. recognized that the bed on which he had been lying was actually an examination table. K. felt his head again to examine where the bird had fallen on him. “Surely there was no need to operate. I don’t even have a bump on my head,” K said to himself. Just then, he heard a cough that seemed to be coming from the opposite side of the glass walls.

“Hello! Hello, can anybody hear me? Hello! I- I’m quite sure that I am not supposed to be here; that’s not to say I don’t appreciate your bringing me in from that cold wind, but I am sure there is no reason for my continued stay, now that I am well. Hello? Hello! Hello, is there anybody there? My name is Joseph K.!”

“We know who you are, Joseph K. We have known you for quite sometime now.” The voice was muffled and echoing, a distortion from what the true voice must have sounded like. K. had no way of recognizing it. The voice came from the ceiling somehow, and yet, seemed to completely surround him.

“Who is there? Please, where is that voice coming from?” K. looked around him trying to pinpoint the direction of the voice. “Please tell me where you are, so I will know in what direction to look. It is quite difficult to speak to someone when their location is unknown.”

“It is not necessary that you see us. We will see you no matter where you are speaking.” There was a soft click, and the voice disappeared.

“I am ready to go home now, hello? If you could just give me my shoes and clothing, I would appreciate it very much.” K. waited for a reply. His hope was in vain. K tried to regain contact again, “Hello!” he shouted, but there was still no answer. “Helloooo!” His voice bounced off the walls of the room, still, no voice replied.

The Silence

After waiting for a little longer, K. decided that he would search the room for some kind of a door. If he failed in finding a way out, at least he would attract the attention of the voice and regain communication. K. ran his fingers across the walls and glass to find a niche or crack to indicate a passageway of some kind. He was careful to run his hands from as high as he could reach, to where the wall and floor converged. K. could not find a niche where a mouse may have access to the room. K. had no luck in his efforts. After trying to establish communication with the voice once again, K made another attempt at escape by pulling on the light structures and pushing on the glass walls. Neither budged.

K’s next attempt was to see if he could find any means of escape through the ceiling. He stood on the examination table. With this added height, K. could reach the ceiling. He knocked on the ceiling to try and find weak spots. He knew that it would be useless to try and break through a solid beam. K. could hear that to the left of him, the sound was hollow. K. immediately got off of the examination table, and moved the table to where the sound was a bit more shallow. He stood on the table, banging at the ceiling in vain. It would not crack.

K. decided that the best thing to do would be to move the examination table back to it’s original spacing. That way, whomever was “constantly” watching him, would think he remained where he was when they last spoke to him. K. got off the table and tried to push it back, when that didn’t work, he stood at it’s side to pull it out of its locked position. He was about to pull it into position when his foot got caught. Did he get caught in a wire? He didn’t recall seeing a wire hanging from the table, perhaps he failed to recognize it.

K. looked at his foot and realized that it wasn’t caught, but rather stuck in a hole that existed under the examination table. He laughed aloud as he pushed the table away from himself to release his foot. To his surprise, the hole was only slightly smaller than the examination table itself. K. used all of his energy to move the table further and further from the hole. While moving the table, he learned that the hole was not merely a hole, but a staircase.

The Cave

K. descended the staircase, pulling the table over his head, placing it back in its original position as best he could. The table locked into position. At the same time, a light went on. Even with the light, K.’s eyes took a little while to adjust, it was such an extreme difference from the bright room he had just escaped from. When his eyes finally adjusted, he realized that the room was cave-like: dark, damp, and cold. There was a low ceiling from which a few lights hung. The lights were not strong like the ones in the examining room. The ground was made of dirt. The walls were poorly structured, curving over his head like a rabbit hole. There were many passages in the walls, each having one to three lanterns at the mouth. K. realized the extent of the cold in this room, but was relieved to find that his clothes were lying on a nearby table in an orderly manner.

K. quickly put his clothes on his shivering body. He wanted to get out of wherever “here” was and perhaps return to a place where he was familiar. Even if he ended up in somewhere outside, it would ha be to be better than the damp, dark place he was. K. ignited a lantern and journeyed down the passage which seemed to be most often used. He walked through the tunnel and noticed crevices that started on the left, slightly above the floor. They continued over head all the way to the right, stopping where it met the floor again. These crevices occurred in a somewhat regular pattern, suggesting to K. that this cave-like underground structure was man-made. K. walked down the path, staying on the part that seemed to be the most worn by footsteps.

From presumably nowhere, K. heard a woman’s scream. He was unsure whether he should stay on his path or follow the screams. He decided to walk on, but questioned whether or not to seek out the woman whose screams made the already dismal surroundings even more difficult to bear. K. strayed from his path to follow the shrieking cries. It sounded as though he was coming closer to the screaming. The screams began to echo throughout the passageway he was walking down.

K. then heard a man’s voice. Footsteps followed and seemed to be coming towards him. K. extinguished his lantern and held his breath while placing his back to an alcove in the wall along the passageway on which he was walking. This allowed him maximum vision of the man whose footsteps seemed to come closer and closer to K.’s hiding spot. There was a scuffle right next to him. The man couldn’t have been more than five meters away from him. K. prayed that he could hold his breath just a few moments longer. He was sure that the loud beating of his heart could be heard. K. took a breath as quickly as possible.

“What was that?” The man exclaimed. His resonant voice echoed throughout the passage lit only by his lantern. K. was sure that this was his final moment. Any moment no he would be caught. He remembered what had happened to the warden’s and feared a fate worse than theirs. He feared his escape was in vain. They had found him at last. K. took a shallow breath and held it once more.

“What was that!” The man said again. Just then, there was a squeak. “Damn rats!” K. then realized the scuffling sounds on the ground. Until that moment all he heard was his heart, his breath being held, and the man’s footsteps. There was another squeak followed by a thud. A rat’s body thudded against K.’s leg. The guard must have kicked it out of the way. “This place wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for all the damn rats! Now where was I going?” The man walked a few more steps and continued talking to himself, scorning and kicking the rats all the while. He scuffled to the left, and kicked another rat. “In through the door, fourth left, first right. Another right to the woman, now back down the corridor...” The man’s voice faded as he proceeded along the path disappearing with his light down the tunnel.

The WInd

Joseph K.’s plan for the day was to go to the courthouse and examine as many of the law books as possible. He felt that perhaps by doing so, he could learn why it was that he was interrogated. K. took the route he often had walked in order to get to the court-house. He made it a point not to look any passers-by in the eye. He didn’t want to be distracted by conversation, allowing him less time to research his case.

To his surprise, the streets were practically bare. K. paused for a moment to survey the area around him, confirming his initial thought that there were, in fact, no people in the streets. The wind seemed to whisper something in K.’s ear. He turned his head as if to catch the wind at a better angle. He noticed instead, a whirlwind whirring down the barren street.

K. slowly walked away from the whirlwind. He thought that it would be best to avoid it as much as possible. He turned the last corner without catching the whirlwind’s attention. The courthouse was in view. The wind whipped K.’s shoulder, nearly making him lose his footing. He turned around and saw that this gust of wind had become another whirlwind altogether. The wind was so strong. At first, K. thought a man had bumped his shoulder.

K. looked around and saw that there were a number of whirlwinds whirring in all directions. Before continuing on to the courthouse, K. paused for a moment to make sure there were no other whirlwinds nearby. The wind itself though, had increased in speed. The shrieking of the whirlwinds became so loud that K. was sure that the noise was piercing his eardrum. The wind seemed to be getting louder each time he turned his head in surveillance. Shrieks of wind whirled by. The strength of the wind made it difficult for K. to walk.

K. was forced to close his now watering eyes in an attempt to block the wind. The weather seemed to become hurricane like. K.’s face felt as though it would crack into pieces if he did not shield himself from the wind. He lifted his arm above his face and proceeded to the direction where he last remembered the courthouse door to be, peeking over his arm every now and then to see that he was headed in the right direction. He grabbed onto the railing of the huge staircase in order to balance himself against the wind.

“Please,” K. shivered. “You must let me in! I shall freeze.” K. banged repeatedly upon the locked door. “Let me in at once!” K. begged through chattering teeth. K. was sure that his fingers had bled by now through his gloves. His skin was so dry. He felt as though the skin on his knuckles would burst from his desperate banging on the large wooden door.

He began to speak to himself. “I am sure that my must be frozen by now. I am sure that someone must be in the courthouse. I was once there on a Sunday. Surely they are open now. The wind is so cold. I can hardly keep my eyes open enough to see that there is a door before me. It would be impossible to walk against this strong wind to return home, or my office for that matter.” Joseph K.’s frustrations were slowly being replaced by the need to crawl into the fetal position, so that the heat of his body could reach its full heating potential.

As K. crawled into this action, he heard a strange chirping. It was a sound similar to that of birds, but quite a bit distorted. As he looked above his head to see what was making this noise, he noticed a gaggle of birds, that looked much like geese, flying in an odd V formation. Suddenly, a bird fell dead upon K.’s head. K. fell unconscious into a position similar to that which he had been contemplating.

The Laughter

When he finally reached the door to his lodging, he noticed that the tomcat was meandering around his ankles. The cat was purring, looking up at K. admiringly. “What are you doing here?” K. said to the tomcat. K. thought of bringing the animal to Fraulein Burstner as a gift, but remembered what happened the last time a cat was brought into the lodging. Frau Grubach had terrible allergies, the most violent of all, allergies from cats.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.” K. said to the tomcat. “If you stay here, I can bring you out some scraps of food.” K. put his hand down affectionately to pet the cat. The cat’s hair stood on end. It began to hiss and spit, screeching at K. The tomcat ran into the street before K. could react to pull back his hand.

K. fumbled for his key, and opened the door to find that the Captain was not on the couch where K. had expected to find him. K. thought this a good thing, whereas he didn’t know how much noise the cat had made in its fit. K’s relief was not entirely admirable, whereas he was partially relieved that the Captain had finally left. The Captain became such a distraction, that K. hardly spent any time with Fraulein Burstner. K. had enough on his mind. The interrogations and his work at the bank were consuming most of his time. He sat on the couch wondering if he should make himself some hot tea to ease his chill.

While sitting, K. heard soft voices coming from Fraulein Burstner’s room. Had the inspector come back to do a background check on him? K’s anger heightened as he approached Fraulein Burstner’s room. He was unsure of what it was that he would say to the inspector, but doubted he could remain calm in such a disrespectful situation. How could anyone be so inconsiderate as to come to the room of a woman at such an hour? Had they waited for her to return home? K. knew that Fraulein Burstner did not return until a late hour, though this hour was late even for her. K. clenched his fists in rage.

As K. approached Fraulein Burstner’s bedroom, he noticed that the voices were accompanied by laughter. It was the laughter of a woman and of a man, though K. could not figure out whose voices they were specifically. K. returned to the couch, forgetting completely about his wet clothes and cup of tea. Perhaps this would be good for his case. Perhaps Fraulein Burstner’s laughter was an inclination of how ridiculous she thought the entire interrogation had become. Still, K. wondered what the inspector could be saying to make her laugh so.

What could the two be doing? K. tried to force this thought out of his mind, he was sure that Fraulein Burstner was a respectable woman, and that he was being silly to expect otherwise. At that moment another thought struck him. Where was the Captain? He was not on the couch, and K. could not remember Frau Grubach saying anything about his leaving. The further K. began to contemplate the possibility of this idea, the louder the voices seemed to grow.

Where had the Captain gone? K. recalled seeing him only a day or two ago. He searched the living room for a trace of the Captain. K. could not find anything to distinguish whether or not the Captain was in fact still there. The room was poorly lit. Once again, the only light was coming through the window from a street lamp that flickered on and off and on again in an in-syncopated rhythm. The thought of the Captain with

Fraulein Burstner had begun to nauseate K. The more intently he listened, the more sure he became that the male voice coming from the bedroom was in fact that of the Captain. How could he be sure? The voice was familiar, but not recognizable through the door, besides, he had heard so many new voices recently.

K. pondered the idea that the voices were perhaps a result of his exhaustion. That thought was interrupted by more laughter. Perhaps the male voice belonged to a friend of Fraulein Burstner. With that thought to comfort him, K. went to bed. He changed into his bedclothes and turned down the sheets.