He Died Alone Because He Was Too

How Was It Possible To Wake Up Every Day And Be Recognizable To Another When So Often One Was Barely Recognizable To Oneself?

When The Word 'nostalgia' Was Coined In The 18th Century, It Was Used To Describe A Pathology - Not So Much A Sense Of Lost Time, But A Severe Homesickness.

Obviously I've Been Reading Kafka For A Long Long Time, Since I Was Really Young, And Even Before I Ever Read Him I Knew Who He Was. I Had This Weird Sense That He Was Some Kind Of Family. Like Uncle Kafka. Now I Really Think Of Him That Way, The Way We Think About An Uncle Who Opened Up Some Path For Being In A Family That Otherwise Wouldn't Have Existed. I Think Of Him That Way As A Writer And A Familial Figure.

Alone In My Room, Wrapped In A Blanket, I Whimpered And Talked Aloud To Myself, Recalling The Lost Glory Of My Youth When I Considered Myself, And Was Considered By Others, A Bright And Capable Person. It Seemed That Was All Gone Now.

I Have Always Written About Characters Who Fall Somewhere In The Spectrum Between Solitary And Totally Alienated.