The Office

It was drizzling when Joseph K. awoke to a startling noise. Noticing the large pile of work on his desk, he slowly realized that he was, in fact, at the bank. K. could not immediately see what the cause of this noise was, since the only light in K.’s office was cast by a nearby streetlight. A dim beam illuminated the corner of his desk and most of the floor beside it.

As he drearily lifted his head from his desk, he noticed a shattered glass on the illuminated section of the floor. The water from the glass was still dripping from the remainder of the glass to the floor. K. was almost entranced by the formation the water was creating. It seemed as though the water was trying to spell something out to K. The water traveled along the cracks of the thickly waxed hard wood. The patterns were snake-like, and appeared to be more dramatically spread out than what could be expected from such a small glass of water. The glass particles seemed to have fallen into patterns. K. was sure that there was some kind of message left by the patterns of the water and haphazardly spread glass that split the snake-like pattern. K. immediately closed his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to shake off his hypnotic state, K. looked at his watch to find that it was already past the hour of two in the morning.

K. cleaned the shattered glass and wiped the spill in fear that one of his co-workers would realize his clumsiness; for he thought that it must have been he who accidentally dropped the glass of water from his desk. After what seemed to be forever, K. gathered his things and set off. By two-forty, K. was out of his office and a block away.

About two blocks away from his office, K. realized that he had forgotten his umbrella. He thought about going back to the bank to retrieve it, but realized that he was already damp and that by the time he got his umbrella, his travels would be in vain, he was already beginning to feel the wetness of the night against his skin.

K. walked down and up the streets, thinking about what the most efficient way of getting home would be. He walked up one street, only to realize he was heading in the wrong direction, so he turned around and walked back down it. In the long run, he ended up walking for longer than he had expected. His tired eyes almost convinced him that his shadow was doing something entirely different from his own definite movements. K. looked behind him, to see if he was hallucinating, or if in fact someone was following him.

K. heard noise coming from behind a garbage heap. “Who’s there? Hello, make yourself known.” K. felt quite silly as he discovered that the noise was the fault of an old tomcat whisking about in the melting snow-pile. K. snapped his fingers at his ankles to attract the cat’s attention. In return, the tomcat gave K.’s fingers a momentary stare, and continued its hunt in the snow.

A drop of water collected on the back of K.’s neck, causing a chill run down his spine. The wind picked up as the drizzle began to die out. K.’s already wet skin felt as though sharp instruments were hitting against it. He pulled his coat tighter to his chest and hid his nose beneath his damp scarf in an attempt to make him warmer. The closeness of his clothing did in fact help to prevent the wind from whipping it about. This helped keep the wind from biting at K.’s already chilled body. K. decided to return home in the manner he always had. The means by which he was trying only ended in a bitter cold pattern of dead ends and circles. K. needed as much sleep as he could get before returning to work only a few hours later.