Dear Franz Kafka,

Upon reading your latest manuscript, "The Metamorphosis," the only regret that I had was having been forced to read it as a part of our class.

So, as I am to understand, Gregor Samsa was such a pussy that he became stuck up in his own life's filth and slowly turned into a vermin? From the lucid description, we assume it's a cockroach, yes? WTF is a vermin anyway? Who says that?

Well, I just have to say, WEAK man. Seriously? A cockroach? Nothing cool can happen with a cockroach unless he's a BAMF Cockroach. Yeah! With a capital C and everything attached! He is Mr. BAMF Cockroach, to you! Unfortunately, Gregor Samsa was the emo cockroach who cried and then used his own tears ** ***********. I appologize for the last comment, apparently, that was a little rude, however I stand by my point and just to illustrate it, I give you this story of:

The Realization:

He sat by the fire in the dark house and pondered his existence. His hair bloomed from his head like a pharaohs hat and in the darkness, you couldn't tell weather his eyes glowed or if it was just the reflection from the roaring fire. He stood at 5'10" with a muscular football skeleton but for now, he was just sitting, hunched over, with a lost look in his eyes.

Strange things had been happening in the weeks prior to this night. As he would nap in his room, things would catch on fire but not burn. In his waking moments, he could swear that he'd feel his forehead skin cut but then it would heal and he didn't notice.

He lived with his sister and his parents in an old house in New Jersey. They noticed the change in his moods as he grew more and more weary of the pursuit to happiness. He began reading the bible obsessively and began to notice slight flaws in perfect logic that he would consider godly. Is it possible, he thought, that our god is not a god at all but merely an alien that helped us create religion in exchange for worship? What a strange thing to desire, he thought.

His sister came into the room and spoke, "John, are you ready for dinner? We're having eggplant parm again..."

She was blonde and small, an 8 year old with the silliness of an only child, in a house of four. She skipped and smiled with rosy padded cheeks and had her hair tied back in a pony tale.

"No, not right now Miri, I have to think and read," John said.

"Thou shalt not kill," said John. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Genesis 9:6!" "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:36." "שמע ישראל ה 'אלוקינו, ה' אחד."

With such contradiction, he started to feel a loss of belief or a super belief...

His father came down an hour after his sister. A strapping man who had his days to sit at home until John's recent illness which caused him to scream and convulse violently while speaking in tongues. The dentists called it a bad tooth, the doctors called it fractured ribs, but what they didn't know was that the change had already begun.

"Hey John. How ya doing? Had a long day? How was work?" Said his father.

"Good dad, thanks. I made a lot of money today. You can keep the lights on," said John.

"Oh. Okay. Well glad to see you're doing well, then," said his father.

"yeah," said John.

His dad left the room, closing the door to read his newspaper.

Johns ribs had grown larger and the fractured ribs were now instantly healed in a bigger frame. The fat began to melt from his body and his temperature rose significantly as he stared at a thermometer that read 103.2. He laid down in his bed and attempted to go to sleep.

"That's all he does is read his newspaper, I did the work around here until he took control from me due to this illness. I should light them on..."

The lamp shade burst into flames and burned down to the wire.

John's mother came casually walking up to the door and knocked on it, softly.

"Are you smoking in there?" She said.

"No. No. I just had a little accident with the fire and some smoke went into the house," said John.

"Are you alright?" She said.

"Yeah ma, I'm fine," said John.

He heard her footsteps leave the general area and he began to open his mind in ways that weren't ever possible before, or to anyone else for that matter. At least no one human.

"I've known it for so long but failed to see it. If I can not grasp heaven and feel the reality of this war, then I must be..."

"A demon!" Said John as the fire came out of the fire place and covered him. It melted away his skin and left a tender more scale like skin underneath. Like that of the Green Anole but with a nice shade of red.

"So," said John, "this is what it's going to be like from now on, huh?"

His first decision as a transformed demon was to light the neighborhood on fire. He walked down the stairs with such speed, the human eye could not even see it. Even his little sister didn't notice the door opening or closing.

As he stood outside, he summoned a deep inner hatred and his head split open, spilling preternatural fire all over every house in the neighborhood. The houses burned viciously but from the top down so nothing would collapse as if the fire was a living thing.

For this was no ordinary fire, it went back and forth. At one moment, it would glow and look as if a beautiful light, then it would change and burn its victims mercilessly without their skin ever showing the results of a burn.

Screams of pain and agony at the light they can never grasp, came from the shells of houses that began to dwindle in the ground.

A squirrel came running into the street where he walked. You squirrels have tried to kill me more than once as you dart out in front of my car. A deer came running after the squirrel. They too burned. Strangely, the neighborhood cats and dogs were perfectly fine and lay on sofas in the middle of a fire pit that didn't burn at all but instead cased them in a bubble of sleep and comfort.

As the world around him burned, John thought to himself out loud. "So demon's are real, where's your god?"

Sincerely,
Dylan Paul