I can imagine Franz Kafka walking down a city street on a Monday morning, headed for his office at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute. He sees hundreds of other men and women, mostly men, likewise trudging along the sidewalk to their offices. He comes upon a crowd. Someone is up on a platform talking politics. Franz sees all the strained faces, the entire crowd eager to hear every word of the speaker, eager to take his words and put them into action.
Franz barely hears the speaker's words as he is observing the expressions of the crowd - narrowed eyes, tight lips, brows furrowed - and wonders what he would say to this crowd if he was the one up on the platform. Ruminating thusly, here is the short tale I imagine Franz composes on the spot and latter commits to paper:
EXCURSION INTO THE MOUNTAINS
"I don't know." I cried without being heard, "I do not know. If nobody comes, then nobody comes. I've done nobody any harm, nobody's done me any harm, but nobody will help me. A pack of nobodies. Yet that isn't all true. Only, that nobody helps me -- a pack of nobodies would be rather fine, on the other hand. I'd love to go on an excursion -- why not? -- with a pack of nobodies. Into the mountains, of course, where else? How these nobodies jostle each other, all these lifted arms linked together, these numberless feet treading so close! Of course they are all in dress suits. We go so gaily, the wind blows through us and the gaps in our company. Our throats swell and are free in the mountains! It's a wonder that we don't burst into song."
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