By: Emily Finch ’27
After finishing Kafka’s classic novella The Metamorphosis, World Literature students were asked to reimagine the iconic opening sentence. Emily Finch’s chilling take on Kafka’s dilemma resonates with everyone shivering through spring in New England and waiting for the summer Sun.
When Emily woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, she found herself changed in her bed into a monstrous moth. She looked around her room, which now seemed a tinge more red and purple than before. That’s when she looked down at herself to see her body, fuzzy and gray with six separate legs tucked into it. Her wings shot out to either side spontaneously, one slamming against the wall and the other toppling various cans of sparkling water from her nightstand to the floor. She jolted, fluttered, and spurred about until she fell from her lofted bed to the clutter of clothing and random objects strewn across her floor. She stirred around the contents of her floor with her wings, sending wrappers, pencils, paper, clothing, and coins flying around to cover even more ground than before. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” she told herself, but she couldn’t keep from spiraling and spinning about. She finally was able to settle onto her legs, but she still felt the continuous unease and panic inside as she’d had. Her body still felt prickly and had a chill as always; at least some things never changed.
It must’ve been around 8:20 a.m., the time she usually woke, because Emily’s roommate, Aiva, was absent from the small room. It was a relief to her, as she never wanted anyone to see her in such a low state. It was almost as if her feelings from the night before had multiplied tremendously and manifested in her sleep. It panicked her, but dually was a blessing as she would certainly not be attending any classes for as long as she’d be like this. She always avoided missing school no matter how badly she wanted to at times, but now she had gotten to such a state that maybe she could excuse herself until she got things together and turned back.
Another chill tore through her body. She couldn’t stand the persistent chill, so she scampered over to Aiva’s lamp, which never turned off whether night or day. She clung to the light, trying to absorb any heat that she could, but the chill still troubled her unbearably. She scuttled to the door and fluttered her wings until she hit the handle and sent it ajar. She pushed herself out into the hallway, her wings dragging across either side of the doorframe. Crawling up along the wall to the ceiling, she sat upon every light, but none could fill the chill in her core. She began to fret in search of a cure or a solution or something to numb the chill until she came to the dorm door.
She got a running start and spread her wings as she jumped into the door and slammed it wide open. She tumbled down the stairs, crashing against the pavement and scraping up her delicate body. That’s when she looked up to the sky and saw it: the Sun. And in that moment, she knew that her chill would persist until she flew there. She looked at her body, fuzzy and bloodied. It was at that moment she decided that, in order to free herself, she had to reach the Sun, and so, she fluttered her wings and began to fly.
She watched as the ground fled from her, and the campus dissipated slowly. She looked up and began to flutter faster and faster, hoping to see the Sun grow bigger. From then on, Emily flew higher and higher in desperation towards the Sun, hoping maybe for enough to rid her of the chill.