Metamorphosis

(This is a fictional short-story)

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

  - opening lines of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

He thought he was an artistic kind, seeing beauty and deciphering complexity in everyday events. Until one day, he could not and could not the day after and in short, every day since then. Unfortunately, the seriousness of the situation did not bother him so much as he had, as just described, lost that kind of ability. He looked into the mirror, mirroring what he had seen many times in serious TV shows and character movies, and asked the question: Who are you?

Physically speaking, he felt little detached from his neck. Like the nerve connections took a U-turn before entering the skull. This of course was corroborated with some recent behavioural changes. He did not feel like eating when his stomach was gurgling, only when he was annoyed or talking for long. You see, the stomach signals which were still emitting were not really registering in the brain. The command structure of his actions were now, quite literally, top-down. Any kind of uprising from the lower levels were quickly thwarted. Another physical effect was this sensation of foggy eye-sight. But the fog must have developed so slowly, that he couldn't, not surprisingly, see it happen.

Things went on as usual though which hinted at the fact that his previous artistic experience was probably just noise or at the least, not very useful. Earlier, when he would get up in the morning and step outside for some fresh air, he might look at the sun and say, so how was your last night or you are up early. He would chuckle at the self-perceived absurdist humour and motivated by this, start poking into the businesses of other inanimate objects. But since his metamorphosis, he stepped out for some fresh air and came back inside quickly because he no longer felt any freshness.

After that, he would have his breakfast and read the news. He would generally take a contrarian position to every single item, if the President said A, he would say, yeah right he actually means B. If someone had died, he would surmise murder. And if someone was murdered, he would guess the killer. Thoroughly convinced that now he knew what was happening in the world, he would continue the next phase of the day. But since that "special" day, he lost all interest in news and ate his breakfast quickly.

Work life hadn't been much affected. In fact, he was more productive since now he didn't spend any time secretly observing some co-worker and predicting their little moves. He would also not read into the many interpretations of an email and just jump straight into answers or ask for clarifications. But overall, it was the same. There was and still is, no place for art at the workplace.

The worst effects were seen at night. Previously, he would sit down with a glass of whiskey and ponder over how his own life was unfurling. He would analyse the events of the day and the consequences thereof. He would absorb the sounds of the night and vicariously partake in the night life. He would look at the lights and observe patterns. He might even look up and talk softly into the sky. He was a believer in the spiritual. Forwarding past to recent history, he would drink as much as he could so that he could sleep without knowing.

Metamorphosis was an idea that connected deeply with him, although he had never read Kafka's famous book. The idea that a person could change into a thing or a thing could become another thing or a person could become another person overnight. Interestingly, he never thought about a thing becoming a person. Anyway, it was clear that he had become a new person. Metamorphosis was not an abstract idea for late night philosophy but his own reality. He looked at the mirror and felt annoyed at this unknown person staring back at him. He felt that a crucial component of life had not woken up from one night, lost in an unrememberable dream and hence forever lost unless, in the almost impossible chance event, he had the same dream. But he no longer dreamt. He used to be an artist, now he was nothing.