There are writers that I like, writers that I love, and writers that I worship. Simic and Kafka fall into the latter category, so imagine how thrilled I was to find these two fables–one by Kafka, the other by Simic–which I read as dual explorations of a similar dystopian insight.
A Little Fable
by Franz Kafka
“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 only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.
from The World Doesn’t End
by Charles Simic
We were so poor I had to take the place of the bait in the mousetrap. All alone in the cellar, I could hear them pacing upstairs, tossing and turning in their beds. “These are dark and evil days,” the mouse told me as he nibbled my ear. Years passed. My mother wore a cat-fur collar which she stroked until its sparks lit up the cellar.
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