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.