ShrinkRap: A Shorter Story I (after Kafka)

A snake, thick and weighty, is lying on my bed.  I am not afraid of what it might do to me: I am afraid it is there. I can feel it pressing heavy on my legs.

I cry out to my father. “Father, come quick, there’s a creature on my bed!” Outside, I hear the click-clack-click of someone rushing along the pavement. A woman, wearing high heels, I know. I know also, yet I do not know how I know, that she is moving from right to left, down the slight hill in the road to the church. At the very same time, the church-bell begins its nightly ten o’clock toll, the dying instruction of a rich villager who wished to be remembered in this way. I know also, yet I do not know how I know, that in the great secret darkness between the street lamps, there will be a car and in it two would-be lovers courting.

When father comes, I tell him: “Father the snake has gone but still I am so afraid”. “But why child?” he asks, angry because he has so needlessly left his warm bed. “Because when the snake disappeared into the night, it left a message which I shall never be able to forget”.  “What kind of message?” father asks, still thinking of his warm bed.  “That people may rush, consumed by the importance of their goal”, I begin; “that others may bequeath large sums believing they will be remembered, and that all lovers believe their love will endure where others’ fades; but I have seen the darkness that awaits them and you and me, Father. That is why I am so afraid still”. “But these are thoughts for adults”, father replies, “and yet you are still a child”. “Before the snake left”, I tell him, “it left its poison in me and there is no antidote. What I have learned tonight I shall never unlearn”.