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Kafka's Uncle: The Unfortunate Sequel
and Other Insults to the Morally Perfect
Anslenot In Ruptureland:
Choosing Not To Choose
Beyond the ice mountains, into the regions . . . beyond the ice, Anslenot is sailing high, high over a vast, white plateau. Slowly the bucket begins to descend and finally, and unceremoniously, hits the ice, skids, topples and Anslenot is dumped out onto the frozen surface. He rolls, then coming to rest on his back, he opens his eyes. White, he thinks. Everything is white. The sky is white, my breath is white. Glancing over to the bucket, he watches as it becomes covered in a thick coating of hoar frost. Everything is white, he thinks again. He pauses to wonder why he isn't cold. Maybe I'm dead, he thinks. Maybe I'm too numb to care. He then hears a distant buzz, then sees something entering his field of vision from the extreme right. He stares. A giant dirigible comes into view. Painted red, white and blue, it slows down, and putters about overhead as if Anslenot has become an object of intense scrutiny, curiosity and interest. Anslenot continues to stare at the dirigible and is somehow reminded of the 1930's German airships, the Graf Zeppelin and the Graf Hindenburg. Abruptly, he sees a window slide open in the gondola and someone dumping out garbage and leaflets. Between apple cores, styrofoam cups, feces, orange peelings, rotten carrots, he also sees flyers fluttering about him with simple, declarative sentences: "You are with us or you are agin' us", "Ignorance is strength", "Juden Go Home", "Only good Injun is a dead Injun", "Freedom is slavery", "Freedom is on the March", "Liberty and Justice For All", "Coloreds Only", "Slant eyes", "War is Peace". The garbage and flyers snow down on Anslenot and soon he is literally buried beneath a pile of rubbish. He holds his breath; the stench is overwhelming and he desperately and simultaneously wants to breathe and throw up. Wildly, he thrashes about and manages to get out from beneath the trash and looking up to the sky again, sees the dirigible puttering away, continuing to dump out flyers and garbage as if having a bad case of existential diarrhea.
"Whoo, messy."
Anslenot, now in a sitting position, turns around. The tarantula is back.
"What a mess, eh pardner?" says the spider.
Anslenot, stupefied, just stares, and finally is able to say, "Wh-what are you doing here?"
The tarantula comes closer, squats and regards Anslenot with its eight eyes. "Got lonely," it says.
"Where are we?"
"My guess," says the tarantula, "is that we're in the regions beyond the ice mountains.
Anslenot blows on his hands. "Where's that?"
The tarantula doesn't say anything for a minute, but then finally says, "You can guess. You can guess or I can tell you and you can have your worst fears confirmed immediately."
"I have a choice?"
"Of course you have a choice."
"What choice do I really have?"
"What choice do you really want?"
Anslenot shrugs. "I guess the best choice."
"What if there is no best choice?"
"Then there is no best choice. Then what?"
"So you choose given the choices you have." All eight of the spider's eyes focus on Anslenot.
"What if I choose not to choose?"
"Your choice." The tarantula's voice is matter of fact, as if talking about the stock market or socks and underwear for sale.
Anslenot blows on his hands again. "So I can choose to guess where we are or I can choose to have my worst fears confirmed. That's it."
"That's it." As if to emphasize, the tarantula spits. "But," the tarantula continues, "there may be another choice after all."
Anslenot stares at the spider, to the eight eyes, and cannot fathom what he sees. At last he says, "you said there weren't any other choices."
"Did I say that?" says the spider.
"You did. Are you choosing not to remember?"
The tarantula continues to squat there, saying nothing for a few minutes. Finally it says, "I'm choosing to say nothing."
"That's impossible," says Anslenot, "you just said something."
"It's how you choose to interpret it. Your fault. But that's beside the point." The tarantula lowers itself as if sharing a guilty secret. "You may have a choice in how you think about all of this."
"What's that?" says Anslenot, looking warily at the spider. "You can choose to be unaware and unconscious."
Anslenot nods. "I like that."
"So be it," says the spider.
"And I can always come back to where I am right now by choosing to become conscious and aware of these choices I can make and no harm will be done."
"Never said that," says the tarantula.
"I choose not to hear that," says Anslenot, getting to his feet. He picks off the worst of the garbage but the flyers are sticky on one side and he cannot peel them off so easily. Looking like a walking poster board, Anslenot surveys the scene.
"Like a ride?" says the tarantula.
Anslenot says, "Sure," and he climbs aboard his existential horror pony and they start off. "Where are we going?" he asks.
"Your choice," says the arachnid.
"Go," says Anslenot.
"Where?" asks the tarantula.
"Don't know," says Anslenot, "just go."
Without saying another word, the tarantula starts walking.
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