A Little Fable
by Iddhis Bing
Although I suspect it is hardly credible to say that one does not have time to write microfiction, or for that matter not even to know exactly what it is, i have been invited to join the group so here I am. I suppose a few of my terser efforts fall under the rubric.... Anyhows, as Pops used to say, I think I can collect them from time to time, and hereby offer you this, my contention being that it isn't a matter of length but of potency: "Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already,
and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."
"You need only change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.
Franz Kafka, as no doubt more than one of you has already guessed.
and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."
"You need only change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.
Franz Kafka, as no doubt more than one of you has already guessed.
|
0
favs |
139 views
6 comments |
187 words
All rights reserved. |
Author's Note
First dive into the MicroFiction pool
Other stories by Iddhis Bing
Tags
Groups
-
MICROFICTION
Public group46 members
Comments
You must
log in
to post comments.
I don't quite understand - is this meant as a piece of microfiction, or intended as a commentary about writing it?
The explanatory bits threw me off, maybe better put in the author's note? Just not sure what this is.
Kafka was one of the first microfictioneers. This is a retellling of a Kafka microfiction. Hooray!
Ah Roy, litterchur, like life, is messy. And au contraire to the old cliché, curiosity didn't kill the cat but made its life a hell of lot more interesting. regards, ib
D.F. Wallace wrote an essay bemoaning the fact he couldn't get students to see the humor in this Kafka piece. I think you've touched it here.
A terrible humor, the humor of mortality, gallow's humor. We are always "laughing up our sleeves." The new translations of both Kafka and Dostoievsky both make this terrible humor available to readers who thought the two writers were just Very Serious.
"It infuriated Kafka when his friends didn't laugh at the stories he read aloud to them."
Howard Jacobson: In Prise of Bad Boys, Guardian, - October 2012. Good article.