Dale Estey

Kafka Advises How To Deal With The End Of The World

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[Illustration by Kafka]

In my novel, Kafka In The Castle, I fill in his lost diaries. Here, as the learned Doktor of Laws, he has been asked to speak to the citizens of the small village of Zurau, where he is living with his sister. He is talking about the end of the Empire the townsfolk have been living under all their lives. It, and the civilization they know, is soon to be swept away. Will their lives go with it?

He speaks the truth, and he avoids the truth.

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15 January 1918

This war. They wanted my opinions about this endless war. These earnest, honest men, awaiting the words from the Herr Doktor of Prague.

I agreed only to answer questions – that way I could not be accused of fermenting treason. Even in these troubled times, the law allows a man to answer questions. Assuming that the law prevails.

The law was present in the form of the policeman, attending this questionable gathering while still in uniform. He doffed his hat as he shook my hand. I would rather have him in our midst, than lurking in the hall. We have nothing to fear from him.

“Will the empire last?” This was first from their lips. And they must have needed to hear the words, for even the Emperor must know that all is lost. The Old Order, having fallen into the hands of dull and witless men, must succumb. The complacency of the age must be purged – but that has not yet happened. That awaits the next generation – and the destruction will be furious. But I do not tell them this.

I am skillful in what I do not tell them, for the truth is beyond their power to persuade or control. (Their next questions would have been more difficult had I not curbed the truth further still.) “What will happen to Zurau? What will happen to us?” And they have every right to worry. To suspect. When a society crumbles, it is those at the bottom who get crushed. But I told them that Amerika seemed a just power – not bent on retribution.

I did not tell them that a victor can do as he wants.

And I told them that we live in a secondary part of a secondary empire – the powers of destruction will be concentrated on Vienna and Berlin. I did not tell them that during the death of a snake, the spasms of the tail can be lethal.

And I told them something which could really be of help. I told them, in this coming year, to grow more food: fatten more beasts: prepare, preserve and put away. Fill their cellars and barns to bursting with food and fuel. Buy some things now, which they can use for barter later if the currency becomes worthless. Look after their families and lands. Look after each other.

16 January 1918

I did not tell them that war is the end result of injustice and arrogance, and that it is oftentimes necessary. I did not tell them that when the natural balance is upset by human action, the cost of righting it must be made in human payment. I did not tell them that a country where neighbour is cruel to neighbour is a country mean for war.

17 January 1918

I did not tell them how the Jews will always suffer in time of war. How we will be searched out, then driven as far as the east is from the west, and then be persecuted. How there will never be safety for us. Yea, even unto the land of Israel.

03/23/2020 0

Shakespeare And Me – Until Black Death Do Us Part

I have been consoled in my writing career that Shakespeare and I have one thing in common. Oh – yes – there may be a dozen others, but there is one I can point to uncategorically. We share a winsome way with our spelling of words. He even spelled his own name in a dozen different ways.

Even before-publication of my novels and stories, I was an example laid before my cousins (those younger than me). I don’t testify that this statement was used, but the gist was: “If you don’t smarten up, you’ll spell as badly as Dale.”.

And I’m sure some smart ass responded: “Not possible.”

But still, it is one (of the possible dozen) comparisons to Shakespeare.

Now, there are two.

It turns out that Shakespeare and I have been spurred on by a Pandemic / Black Death, to while away our enforced isolation to write our respective tomes. The Bard had to not only flee London, but his actors company was forbidden to mount any plays. All the theatres were closed. He decamped to safer accommodations and, with time at hand, wrote King Lear and Macbeth and other plays.

My indefatigable main character, Alison Alexandra (about whom I have been writing over four years) has decided to have her closest friends come and stay at her house until the world turns less mad. And – yes – this even includes R/Jane-the-Ghost. ‘Twill be a merry troupe. Quite Shakespearean.I’ll be busy for months.

I might even include Shaksbeard himself in my dedication.

03/20/2020 0

BREAKING: The Queen addresses citizens of the UK and the Commonwealth — Royal Central

The Queen has released a message to citizens of the UK and the Commonwealth as the coronavirus pandemic worsens. The Queen’s speech in full “As Philip and I arrive at Windsor today, we know that many individuals and families across the United Kingdom, and around the world, are entering a period of great concern and…

via BREAKING: The Queen addresses citizens of the UK and the Commonwealth — Royal Central

03/19/2020 0

Black Death and End Times

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Their world was ending.

They knew that from the toll of the church bells. They knew that from the stink of death. They knew that from the carts of seeping corpses being pushed through the streets. It was The Terrible Pox.

The Black Death.

Heat made the stink worse. The screams themselves became more terrible in the summer heat. Screams caused by the boils, and the black blood flowing through veins. The fetid vapours rose, and the drivers of the Death Carts puked from the stench.

There was nowhere to go, and no one to help. The monarch, the nobles, the bishops, and the wealthy, all fled to the country. They locked themselves into grand castles, yet they still died. The doctors, who knew no remedy, also died from their futile efforts.

Neither the poor nor the rich, the young nor the old, women nor men, were spared. They screamed and clawed to their death, and rats fed from their bloated bodies.

Towns and villages became armed camps. Strangers were turned back at the outer limits. Those suspected of the Plague were locked in their homes, sometimes to be burned. People were clubbed, a few were shot, many were buried before they were dead. There was no sorrow, and no mercy shown to any who were a threat.

The living were frantic to prove they still had life.

They ate and drank and danced and fucked as often as their bodies would allow. They were afraid to sleep, so terrified of that fake death with the real all around. They beat on drums, rang the bells frantically, shouted and sang and swore and cried. They rode horses wildly through the streets, until the beasts fell from exhaustion. They pillaged the vacant homes of the rich, looted stores and wine shops, and paraded in the jewels and fine clothes they had stolen. Women and girls and boys were raped and sodomised by strangers and kinfolk alike.

They did anything for action, anything to prove they were different from the rotting corpses in the carts, which trundled through the streets toward mass graves. They played all the more, and when some fell slavering in their midst, they were kicked into the gutters and forgotten.

It was a time for witches and charlatans. People would believe anything, take any quackish product, if it promised to save their lives. Ghosts walked the land while crops rotted from neglect. It was the end of the world for those who knew no better.

03/18/2020 0

Nothing For Saint Patrick’s Day From “Kafka In The Castle”

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[Illustration by Kafka]

I have filled in the missing diaries of Franz Kafka in my novel Kafka In The Castle, but there was nothing for 17 March 1917. However, the days on either side of it were definitive.

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16 March 1917

Dismal day. The earth fit only for vermin.

18 March 1917

To the country. To the dead.

03/17/2020 0

The Queen is moved from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle after coronavirus crisis talks — Royal Central

The Queen has taken up residence in Windsor Castle after leaving Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty has moved to Windsor following crisis talks as the government decides how best to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. It is understood that if the situation continues to worsen, she will be placed into quarantine at Sandringham alongside the Duke of […]

via The Queen is moved from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle after coronavirus crisis talks — Royal Central

03/16/2020 0

Kafka And His Fate On The Ides Of March

In my novel, Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the missing entries of his actual diaries. There are many days to fill, as he either did not write during these days, or he destroyed the record.

Franz Kafka had his famous conflict with his father. He even wrote a book about it. For The Ides of March, I imagine how Kafka pictured the will, and the actions of his father. Beware.

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15 March 1917

Had I been born into a different family – with other parents – I would be a different person. I was doomed from my first breath to have the father I have. My life is shaped beyond the reach of my choice.

I have lived so much of my life defending myself, that I marvel I have advanced at all. It is difficult to have achievements while continually looking over your shoulder for a knife in the back. Harder still, when you have to stop periodically, reach awkwardly around, and pull out the blades embedded there from childhood.

Cut and bloodied fingers make it painful to pick up the life spread before you.

But, my father is not always content to stand behind. From any alley – indeed, from any room, across any table – my father can charge at me with an outstretched lance, or a sword held high to come chopping down across my neck, with the full intent of severing my head from my body.

That he often strikes blindly makes his attack no less destructive.

Beware

[Image] https://earthsky.org/upl/2019/03/ides-of-march-calendar-300×225.jpg

03/15/2020 0