If Kafka was still alive,
he'd take the escalator that never arrives,
stand at the top as it moves in reverse,
filing a claim with the Department of Confusion.
He'd be detained at airports
for carrying his own name,
his passport flagged:
"Too many questions."
He'd scroll through terms and conditions
with trembling hands,
signing away the right to silence
just to download a weather app.
If Kafka was still alive,
he'd whisper stories into his phone
that autocorrect would twist
into riddles no one could decipher—
except a small intern at a cloud server farm
who weeps, not knowing why.
He'd sit in Zoom meetings
muted by default,
his camera frozen mid-blink,
while the host asks him
to kindly remain invisible.
If Kafka was still alive,
he'd write emails that vanish into voids,
receive rejection letters
for jobs he never applied to,
be summoned to court
for laws not yet written
about crimes not yet invented.
His landlord would text:
"Rent is due for your absence."
And Kafka would reply:
"I have always paid in confusion."
He'd still keep writing—
scraps, fragments,
fables folded into trash bins,
because he'd know
that absurdity has gone digital,
that the trial never ended—
it just upgraded its software.
If Kafka was still alive,
you'd see him
on the subway,
face lit by a flickering screen,
half-smiling as he watches
the world behave
exactly as he feared.
