One Kafka Too Many

It looks like there's a race to be the next writer published in Velosophy.

And catastrophically, the main contenders are both Kafka.

To clarify, one is the real Kafka; the other Kafka is Pliny the Elder. Who will be the first to get his story to the office of the editors?

Let's look over the shoulders of the two would-be Kafkas, and see how they're getting on.

Here is the real Kafka hunched over his exercise book writing feverishly. He is continually being interrupted by members of his family walking back and forth between the bedroom and the dining room, for his bedroom is just a passage, with a bed in it. So what is he writing?

........K carried the tiny bicycle under his arm all the way to the Post Office, one pedal jammed uncomfortably against his ribs. He entered, to be confronted by a scowling woman behind the counter. It's forbidden to bring a bicycle into the Post Office, she said, waving a sheet..........

Mmm. Hard to tell where he's up to, but it seems to be somewhere in the middle. Let's go and spy on Pliny the Elder.

Here is Pliny the Elder hunched over his Notebook, typing away like the clappers, stopping occasionally to refer to a library book, " Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay". It's not the type of library book, he usually reads. Perhaps it was borrowed from the library by somebody else. Let's see what he's writing.

.......a giant beetle, or cockroach or, as K originally referred to it, Ungeziefer. The actual measurements of the creature were not given, therefore it was not possible to ascertain whether it was likely to have been squashed when ridden over by an ordinary-sized bicycle, or whether it had to be something larger. However, K concluded........

Concluded! Pliny's going well! He could turn out to be the faster Kafka.