Kafka Sunrise

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Kafka Sunrise

“I cannot make anyone understand what is 

happening inside me.”--Franz Kafka.

One morning, years ago, I awoke to an odd

clicking noise. As I localized the sound, I

realized that it was more of a crazed crunching,

and that it was coming from my left ear. I

panicked a bit--did I have a punctured ear drum?

Then the noise stopped. I had my wife look at

my ear. She found nothing. 

The crunching sound would come and go. 

Sometimes it would get very loud, then subside. 

It became surreal, like a Kafka daydream. I 

imagined a tick or a spider burrowing in my cheek.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The noise became 

maddening. Then suddenly it began to itch. I

turned the lamp on just in time to greet an ant

emerging out of the quagmire of ear wax. It

dropped into my hand. I took it outside and

released it. It had earned its freedom.

Last June, beneath deck stairs,

hundreds of tiny black spider’s

eggs hatched babies.

Glenn Buttkus

Haibun

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub