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When You Have Angels In Your Hair, Can You Be Stopped?

I’ll repost a favourite summer memory:

I visit wharves and gaze out to sea.

I prefer small working ports, gritty and smelling of fish and lobster and ocean. The scurry and comings and goings (though I also like them in the evening when most work is done). I walk the docking between the boats and peer from the end of the wharf. I ponder distant shores or endless sea and screaming gulls with sometimes seals and whales and archaic Blue Herons.

Last night, when I thought the wharf was my own, a man, woman, toddler and dog arrived. They seemed to do much as I was doing, though they knew the owner of one of the fishing boats. The man was gruffly talkative, the dog was rambunctious, the woman apologized for the toddler’s dirty face and the little girl didn’t quite know what to make of me. Friendly and chatty but she wouldn’t take my hand as I offered to walk her up a gangplank.

I left them on the docking between the moored boats and started to walk on the wharf itself.  The fishing boats and the docking were parallel to the wharf.  I was half way along when I heard a shout. I heard the dog. I looked over and this is where life becomes art becomes life. It was a Kodak moment. It was a Motorola moment. It was a ‘freeze frame/real time/fast forward’ moment. It was a composition/edited moment. It was all these things which came to my visual mind. All this and the knowledge that there was no way I could get there if I was needed.

The little girl was going for the gold.

She had God in her feet and Angels in her streaming hair as she raced between the moored boats. Her dirty face was wide with excitement and it is probably the happiest she has been in her life.

The man was restraining the dog and the woman was in athletic pursuit. They raced between the boats and the mooring lines and the tools of the fishing trade.

The dock swayed in the movement of the waves.  

I could not believe the swiftness of the child. The woman finally took what seemed to me a runner’s stance and eventually grabbed the exuberant child. I heard, over the water, admonishments of what could happen if she had “gone under a boat.”

All – of course – true.

But the dog understood.

DE

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Is Kafka Correct About The Dead?

In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

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17 June 1917

            I am told that you can’t lose people, that “…they will always be with you in memory.” Max is heavy with this type of comment – as if the hand of sentimentality brushed off his coat before he set out on each day. Both the intelligent and the slow of wit seem to be struck dumb by this nonsense. Emotion, I suppose  – hope, I suppose – has no place for reason among its folds. But, if you can not touch, or have expectation of being touched, then the people and places are as gone as yesterday. There is no way to travel back, and the future beckons with only an empty gesture and a hollow laugh. Bowing low at the open doorway to usher you in, but the room is empty. And will remain ever so. When they are no longer there to hold their hand out to you – well, then they are no longer there.

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I Saw Gwen Downtown This Afternoon

I saw her three times.

Slender, blond, walking with intent, dressed with a flourish.

Gwen died five days ago.

But it coulda been her. Some last minute business to tidy up.

Or, there was that one, solitary crow, flying overhead, cawing also with intent, A sorrowful sound indeed.

That would be more like Gwen, saying good-bye.

~ Dale

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Since Kafka Writes So Many Letters, Does He Become A Bore?

   In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

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10 June 1917

           I find I am writing the same letters. Saying the same things. Even using the same words. Perhaps to prove that they are the same thoughts. Over and over like a child hawking his newspapers on the street. Yet, he has more success, for I can not sell. I can not even give away.

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Where Do You Go After You Die?

Away

FAR Away

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Does Kafka (Who Endlessly Seeks The Truth) Want To Hear The Truth?

   In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

This particular entry from the life I created for Kafka is one of my favourites.

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08 June 1917

           A Gypsie confronted me today, and I was in the mood for a bit of sport. Her age was difficult to tell – certainly a decade older than me. In her swirl of shawls and dangling jewellery, heavy make-up on her face, she could almost have been in disguise. She peered at me with an intense sigh, attempting – I am sure – to penetrate my own disguise. “You are a Jew,” she said. “And you a Gypsie,” I replied. She seemed pleased with my response, for her professional smile became real. “You state the obvious,” she said. “As becomes a Doktor of Laws,” I replied. “But to your eyes, do you not state the obvious?”  “Are you going to banter with a poor old Gypsie woman, instead of barter? That would make you suspiciously like one of us.” She said this with a growl in her throat. “The Gypsie and the Jew,” I said, feeling the challenge which I so miss. “Perhaps an opera – but I think it’s been done to death.” 

     “They will try to do us all unto death,” she said harshly, and turned away. I had the fear she was going to leave me without another word, but what she did was to spit fulsomely onto the street. “They can’t kill us all,” I said, but I knew she heard the doubt in my voice. She slowly faced me again. “So. Even a Doktor of Laws can have hope. That is refreshing – but foolish.” She took my hand and felt my palm roughly with her thumb, although all the while her eyes never left my face. “You are going to travel.”  “Travel is a vague word. One can go on many types of voyage.”  “And reach many destinations,” she added, still holding my hand. “If you take away my vagueness, you take away my trade.”  “Then let me pay you for your services right now.”

     This transaction would make her loose my hand, which is what I wanted most of all. She had frightened me, for her eyes and face were full of truth. I know the truth. I know it when it presents itself, stark and unobscured. I search out truth endlessly, yet still can flee at its approach. As in her eyes. But she gripped me more fiercely, and pulled my hand up. “The coin, Herr Doktor.” Her voice was now soft. “The coin can wait.” She at last lowered her eyes and looked closely at my palm. She rubbed the lines and whorls of my skin. She touched her finger to her lips, and spread the moisture along my hand. “Your lifeline, Herr Doktor,” she took a quick look in my eyes, “of Laws. You deceive with the youth upon your face. Is that not so?”  “If your eyes stop at the mask, then no, the years have not etched themselves deeply.”  “Not on your face, Herr Doktor of Laws.” Her grip was intense. “But on your palm…” She hissed. “You will soon embark upon that final voyage.”

     She released my hand, rubbed her fingers across her sleeve. “But you will not go in haste. There will be many stops along the way.” Suddenly her face was full of the most beautiful smile, and her laughter was genuine. “I see you do not complain of vagueness now.” She held out her hand. “The coin, Herr Doktor of Laws. This time I have truly earned it.” I dug deeply into my pocket, and feared that I may have overpaid her. But, perhaps, that is not possible.

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If Kafka Were To Die, What Would He Think?

   In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

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07 June 1917

I wonder what my final thought will be – just before I die. I was moments away from death this afternoon, as I stepped unheeding onto the tram tracks. The motorman’s frantic bell made me leap. Had I been too slow, my last thoughts would have concerned where and when to take my vacation. Not very glorious last thoughts to possess.

     But, had I the time granted to me, what would I chose to think about? Perhaps F. Perhaps the writing – I’d like to finish the novel. Would I torture myself thinking about father? Would I accept that my past – now that it was ending – was finally settled. Or would I instead – and this is what I really expect – be wondering what I was going to miss tomorrow?

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If Kafka Had Not Retreated From Love

  In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

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05 June 1917

           Had I not retreated, I would have given up myself. This is what is expected from love. My thoughts and emotions would be continually extracted. I have no way to replenish them, so I would eventually be hollowed out. And I would collapse.

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Kafka In Love (From “Kafka In The Castle”)

   In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

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 04 June 1917

          Sometimes – with F – a kiss could make me feel l was becoming part of her. 

         And she into me. 

         I retreated.

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