Kafka's Uncle by Bruce Taylor

Author:Bruce Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: literature, magical realism, kafka, metamorphosis
Publisher: ReAnimus Press

The Red Lion

The red lion creeps through the tall, dry grass. It stops, sniffs the air. It is a powerful beast, invisible, unstoppable. It moves through the grasses silently and in the distance, sees the prey. It knows this will be easy...

Shanny was six when he first realized that he was a lion. A true lion. A red lion—made strong, massive from what his life was like. His real father left the family when Shanny was four. His mother remarried a drunk and Shanny’s life was hell. And you know how it is when you’re a kid and your life is hell. You, of course, assume it’s all your fault and you’re ruined before you begin. Or so it should seem. And who knows why these things happen but when the pain began, Shanny discovered a friend, Bosco, the neighbor’s cocker spaniel.

Bosco had golden hair, as did Shanny. Shanny needed loving; the dog always needed loving, as dogs are wont to do. And who knows how these things happen, but Shanny and the cocker spaniel became buddies, although the dog always went home to its rightful owners at night. But during the day, Bosco’s heart took the brunt of Shanny’s sadness and complaints. And Bosco sat there, with those big brown eyes of hers, and absorbed all of Shanny’s soul, as if she truly understood, as dogs seem to do. And Bosco seemed to the only creature that really understood Shanny’s pain, but there was something missing—until—

—the alien appeared and it understood even more than Bosco and when Shanny lay in bed, hearing his Mom fighting with his drunk stepfather, the alien one night, appeared. Shanny woke up in a dream, frightened.

“Don’t be frightened,” the alien said, “don’t be frightened. Bosco listens to you. But I can talk to you. Don’t be frightened.”

Shanny said nothing.

“Your Mom and Dad are fighting,” the alien said.

“It’s all about me,” Shanny whispered. “If I were just a better kid, they wouldn’t be fighting.”

The alien said nothing for a minute. “Bosco thinks you’re pretty special.”

“Bosco’s just a—a dog,” said Shanny.

“Dogs are smart,” said the alien. “They don’t hang around bad people.”

Through the wall, Shanny could hear his parents fighting, his stepfather yelling, “Don’t tell me to stop drinking! I can stop whenever I want to!”

Then something went pop and slam and crunch and then his Mom was crying and Shanny shrank down further under the covers. He trembled, cried in fear, rage and anger that he wanted to do something but didn’t know what to do. But suddenly, something in him felt big. Abruptly, Shanny was still. He stopped trembling.

The alien was aware of the change. “Be careful,” he said to Shanny. “Be careful of that thing in you that is big. Be careful of that.”

It was then that Shanny realized that he had a special talent. He saw the alien, tall, with a fine covering of golden hair, with brown eyes and a strange, dog-like face—and suddenly, he wasn’t sure how he could do it—but he was looking at himself through the alien’s eyes.

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