The Virtual Vanaprastha: Kafka in Richmond Page

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Franz Kafka wakes up from a nap to discover that he occupies a bed at a homeless shelter called the “Roach Motel,” in the year 2015, and no one could be more surprised than he. Computers, television, Smartphones, rock bands, urinals: what can it all mean? Under threat of the madhouse for believing that he is Franz Kafka, he makes his escape into a world and a cast of characters he could hardly have imagined. What will he do with his time now that he is stranded in Richmond, Virginia? What is this new world like in which he finds himself? How will he ever make his way back to 1920? In the end, one thing will prove to be certain: he could never have been prepared for what lay ahead… or who he would become.

**An excerpt from Kafka in Richmond:**

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As the discussion was coming to an end, Arthur and K approached a small corner storefront, its door propped open and ringed by a semicircle of gleaming Harley Davison motorcycles. Within the ring, a half-dozen men and women sat, with hunched shoulders, on battered spindly-legged chairs, and spoke in tones too low to be made out. K paused momentarily to look intently toward the bikes before Arthur firmly took him by the arm and forced him to continue along in the direction they were walking. It was hardly noticeable that they had broken stride.

This was quite extraordinary in K’s estimation but he sensed the matter must wait to be addressed until they were out of earshot of the dour and heavily tattooed group. “What danger was so great that it necessitated dragging me up a street like a child its ragdoll?” he asked once he gaged that they were at a great enough distance not to be overheard. “Are they American Indians?”

It took most of the three block walk, until they approached the grocery store, for Arthur to explain biker groups and their protectiveness of their motorcycles and tough guy reputations. As they approached the turn-off to the store, K noticed a group of young men gathered glumly together at the entrance to a parking lot below a large sign bearing the name ‘Lowe’s’. The men spoke little as the two approached. The little they said seemed to be spoken in a foreign language.

“Are these, perhaps, American Indians?”