Thursday, August 12, 2010

kafka

i fell asleep while reading kafka and dreamed something terrible. at the end of the dream i wasn't able to walk and i was saying to someone, sometimes my body just doesn't work and he was saying you know what that indicates, right? and i said no, no, don't tell me. and then i was at a couch and there was a radio on and someone was there and i woke up--i was very sluggish--i couldn't move my face or open my eyes but i was on the couch i'm on now the one i was sleeping on--and i woke and i knew the person there was upstairs and was coming to get me as soon as i was awake so i pretended to sleep and some machine was monitoring my breath and i had to breathe very carefully so they wouldn't be able to tell anything. and then she was there the person from upstairs she was the cleaning lady spraying the windows and i thought it was embarrassing to sleep while someone cleaned everything so i woke up and here i am, alive.

here is another dream

i had a dream about a wet mud town where people would go and pretend to be dead. and then i found out it was a tv show and you got money to pretend to die. but i kept making all of the dead people come back to life (and they were confused about that) and when i found the sound stage i realized i had been there forever.

here is what kafka says:

"out with your stories! i no longer want to hear scraps. tell me everything from beginning to end. i won't listen to less, i warn you. but i'm burning to hear the whole thing."

"spreading his handkerchief over the hollow in a worn step, he invited me to be seated: 'it's easier for you to ask questions sitting down. i'll remain standing, it's easier for me to answer. but don't torment me!'"

"feeling that this required an answer, i put my hand in the hip pocket of my trousers as though i were looking for something. actually, i wasn't looking for anything, i just wished to change my appearance in order to show interest in the conversation."

and this (which is probably the center, for me, of everything):

"what is it that makes you all behave as though you were real? are you trying to make me believe i'm unreal, standing here absurdly on the green pavement? you, sky, surely it's a long time since you've been real, and as for you, ringplatz, you never have been real."

these are all from "description of a struggle"