I woke up this morning to discover I had turned into an insect.

[Marquis]

Flat like a cockroach, but with thousands of legs on each side, more than a millipede or any other animal recognized by conventional zoology.

I looked around my bedroom and couldn't stand to see things I could no longer enjoy as a bug so I squeezed under my door and scuttled down my stairs and out of my building to go live on the beach where I could bury under the sand and enjoy the heat and the pitter patter of real people's feet above me.

I dug myself a hole and went to sleep. I woke up to a scurrying digging sound and felt the sand move around me. I figured it was a mother sea turtle, coming to lay her eggs in the very spot I had chosen. I laid very still, hoping she would do just that and I could one day wake up to see life bursting forth all around me and be part of something beautiful.

But it was a rat, digging for food. It pulled me out of my hole before I could realize how foolish I was for thinking it would be a turtle and turned me on my back. I was frozen in terror. It took a few sniffs at me and decided there were better things to eat.

I laid on my back for hours expecting death to take me. Eventually I was found by a young child who had wandered off from its family. It was too young to know what an oddity it had found, and ran its fingers along my many legs in curiousity. It tugged on my legs hard enough to make me scream, but I kept quiet because I appreciated the company and I did not want to upset the young thing for hurting me in innocence.

Eventually the child's mother came along to find it playing with a grotesque creature and she picked it up and slapped its little hands. She kicked some sand on me and they walked away together. Consciousness faded away and I felt a deep satisfaction as I expected the liberation of death.

I woke up once more and the salty smell of the ocean hit my nostrils like an elixir. I looked at myself to see I had returned as a man, more strong and beautiful than ever. Muscles rippled on every side of me and my hair was full and long. I lay naked, partially covered by sand for a few moments as I took in the beauty of the sky and the clouds. Again I felt a scurry under the sand, but this time I raised a confident fist and brought it down hard like the hand of God.

I felt a crunch that didn't feel right. I looked under my fist to see the flattened remains of a sea turtle.

 

[serijules]

This post reminded me of an episode of The Tick.

 

[snowy ciara]

I like your version better than Kafka's, except for the smooshing of the sea turtle.

 

[Marquis]

This reminds me of the time I shot a lemur.

In it's last dying breath it asked me why and I said I was going to eat it. It seemed comforted by that and let go of its life peacefully. Then I threw its body over a cliff.

 

[Marquis]

The other day I looked into the mirror to find not me, but a crude and disgusting version of myself, as if I had been tortured as a young child and raised by a clan of indigent sociopaths. He was the most loathsome criminal I had ever encountered, a serial rapist with a harem of young women he would import from strange lawless countries and he used them as a bestial farmer would use livestock. He fucked them, ate them and burned them for fuel.

As I sat, listening to his sordid tales, I was overcome with wrath over these injustices and pulled out my pocket knife to shove it through the mirror with such force it would reach the next dimension and my doppelganger would be slain. I lept towards the looking glass and was hit with an incredible shock as blood began to squirt out of a deep wound in my chest with the handle of a pocket knife sticking out of it.

The bastard was quicker than I.

 

[brioche]

yup. I hated the apples...

It sounds like Kafka on acid, Marquis.

I always hated Kafka - it always seemed like he was driving home a point and I never got it- spent all my time circling around it.

Btw, if you want an excellent satire of The Trial Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book had me laughing for weeks. But you would have to read The Eyre Affair first to understand it. And you would have to be a teacher, English major, or intelligent enough to read a lot to find them funny. Also, you'd need to know Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, and Great Expectations' main plots. There'll be more, too, I'm sure, but I'm only on Book Two.

 

[Marquis]

I went into town with my mother once and waited outside as she did the shopping as was our wont.

At one point a beggar crawled up to me with gnarled skin and teeth as black as coals. His arms, legs and ribs were as visible as any model skeleton, covered by a thin membrane of skin that had worn raw in his palms and knees.

He made me very nervous, as if his bad fortune was somehow communicable and I began to turn from him but he managed to muster a smile so I would not be scared. I didn't want him thinking I was so easily shaken, so I took out a 100 Shilling note and held it gingerly in front of me, forcing a smile of my own in the process.

He tore the money from my hands excitedly and forced himself upright so he could go buy himself some food or a gasoline can but the strain was too much for his feeble body and he collapsed under the weight of his own head to form a pile of old bones in the middle of the street.

I looked to see if my bill had fallen to the outskirts of the pile, but it seemed to be trapped in the middle, covered with ribs, broken pieces of femur and vertabrae. How rude. There were lots of men far worse off than him that would have done a lot with that money.

I glanced at my watch and tapped my foot as I waited for my mother impatiently.

 

[brioche]

I went into town with my mother once and waited outside as she did the shopping as was our wont.

At one point a beggar crawled up to me with gnarled skin and teeth as black as coals. His arms, legs and ribs were as visible as any model skeleton, covered by a thin membrane of skin that had worn raw in his palms and knees.

He made me very nervous, as if his bad fortune was somehow communicable and I began to turn from him but he managed to muster a smile so I would not be scared. I didn't want him thinking I was so easily shaken, so I took out a 100 Shilling note and held it gingerly in front of me, forcing a smile of my own in the process.

He tore the money from my hands excitedly and forced himself upright so he could go buy himself some food or a gasoline can but the strain was too much for his feeble body and he collapsed under the weight of his own head to form a pile of old bones in the middle of the street.

I looked to see if my bill had fallen to the outskirts of the pile, but it seemed to be trapped in the middle, covered with ribs, broken pieces of femur and vertabrae. How rude. There were lots of men far worse off than him that would have done a lot with that money.

I glanced at my watch and tapped my foot as I waited for my mother impatiently.

Well, with shillings, it ain't Kafka anymore...

Uh huh.

 

[Marquis]

Three days before I turned 16 I woke up to find a giant lobster in bed with me.

He told me if I would come to heaven with him and live 30 days as a saint, he would then give me the choice to either remain in paradise or return to earth as the richest and most powerful man on the planet.

I went back to sleep and when I woke up he was gone.

 

[Marquis]

I exist somewhere in between the infinite and the infintessimal. To the population of man I am but an amoeba but to the organisms that live within me I am their universe.

Each day exists as a but a single stroke in the great mural of time but as sole purpose of being for the seconds that strive hard to make a full day like the last inch of a marathon.

But if I waste every second...

 

[Marquis]

If human beings all died, who would care if we'd ever lived at all?

 

[canadiancutie]

Flat like a cockroach, but with thousands of legs on each side, more than a millipede or any other animal recognized by conventional zoology.

I looked around my bedroom and couldn't stand to see things I could no longer enjoy as a bug so I squeezed under my door and scuttled down my stairs and out of my building to go live on the beach where I could bury under the sand and enjoy the heat and the pitter patter of real people's feet above me.

I dug myself a hole and went to sleep. I woke up to a scurrying digging sound and felt the sand move around me. I figured it was a mother sea turtle, coming to lay her eggs in the very spot I had chosen. I laid very still, hoping she would do just that and I could one day wake up to see life bursting forth all around me and be part of something beautiful.

But it was a rat, digging for food. It pulled me out of my hole before I could realize how foolish I was for thinking it would be a turtle and turned me on my back. I was frozen in terror. It took a few sniffs at me and decided there were better things to eat.

I laid on my back for hours expecting death to take me. Eventually I was found by a young child who had wandered off from its family. It was too young to know what an oddity it had found, and ran its fingers along my many legs in curiousity. It tugged on my legs hard enough to make me scream, but I kept quiet because I appreciated the company and I did not want to upset the young thing for hurting me in innocence.

Eventually the child's mother came along to find it playing with a grotesque creature and she picked it up and slapped its little hands. She kicked some sand on me and they walked away together. Consciousness faded away and I felt a deep satisfaction as I expected the liberation of death.

I woke up once more and the salty smell of the ocean hit my nostrils like an elixir. I looked at myself to see I had returned as a man, more strong and beautiful than ever. Muscles rippled on every side of me and my hair was full and long. I lay naked, partially covered by sand for a few moments as I took in the beauty of the sky and the clouds. Again I felt a scurry under the sand, but this time I raised a confident fist and brought it down hard like the hand of God.

I felt a crunch that didn't feel right. I looked under my fist to see the flattened remains of a sea turtle.

This made me question my way of dealing with bugs. normally when I find a bug i put airholes in a paper cup and trap them, because they scare me but I don't agree with thoughtlessly killing things, so that way someone else can put them outside. After reading your post, I kind of want to eliminate them. I won't, but I kind of want to.

 

[Marquis]

A riddle:

When is a Man most like a god?

Scroll down for the answer.

 

[BlueSugar]

sounds like something Annie Dillard and Hunter S. Thompson would collaborate.

 

[canadiancutie]

If human beings all died, who would care if we'd ever lived at all?

congratulations on summarizing every cliché art film ever made

 

[Marquis]

I think I need to try harder drugs.

There are a lot of heroine addicts in my family. They must know something I don't or they would be succesful lawyers and doctors and such. Right?

 

[Aeroil]

If human beings all died, who would care if we'd ever lived at all?

Valcorians would care, less people for them to soul-rip and expand their armies.

 

[canadiancutie]

Valcorians would care, less people for them to soul-rip and expand their armies.

haha that may be the weirdest thing you've ever said.

 

[graceanne]

I wonder if this whole thread would make more sense to me if I'd taken some morphine before I read it.

 

[Marquis]

This thread doesn't even make sense to me anymore. That's a VERY good sign.

 

[Seduce]

I always hated Kafka - it always seemed like he was driving home a point and I never got it- spent all my time circling around it.

I dont think Kafka intended to make a point, he was probably just writing from the bottom of his soul things that came to his mind, I should say catching glimpses of his Id.
Just like Marquis here, I guess.

Lots of great writers wrote like that, and I like it (there is a name for that kind of writing but I am not certain how would I translate it in English), sometimes they leave to you to make your own point, or just leave it pointless so you dont really think about it but just feel it.

One doesnt have to explain just everything in the world.

 

[Aeroil]

haha that may be the weirdest thing you've ever said.

Most Definately.

 

[sphynx's dragon]

This thread doesn't even make sense to me anymore. That's a VERY good sign.

Yes....yes it is

 

[arctic-stranger]

It sounds like Kafka on acid, Marquis.

I always hated Kafka - it always seemed like he was driving home a point and I never got it- spent all my time circling around it.

Btw, if you want an excellent satire of The Trial Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book had me laughing for weeks. But you would have to read The Eyre Affair first to understand it. And you would have to be a teacher, English major, or intelligent enough to read a lot to find them funny. Also, you'd need to know Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, and Great Expectations' main plots. There'll be more, too, I'm sure, but I'm only on Book Two.

I recommend reading Kafka in the original german. Not that it is any better, but it is much harder, at least for me, and you realize he isnt going anywhere a lot quicker, so you put it down. I hate myself for plowing through The Castle (Dass Schloss) just to realize that it was all about the central metaphor, and there WAS no plot.

At least Marquis gave us the gift of brevity.

Oh, and the Fforde series is wonderful. It is one of those series that i am reading very slow, so i can enjoy it for the a long time. (I do that. I have been reading The Sandman series for the last four months, and the Preacher for the last three years. I really want to make them last.)

 

[graceanne]

This thread doesn't even make sense to me anymore. That's a VERY good sign.

Ya think?