Creatures that lurk
In “Die Sorge des Hausvaters” Franz Kafka writes of a creature called Odradek.1 Some say the name is of Slavonic origin, others that it’s German, but no one can be really sure. This unclear origin isn’t the strangest bit — for this we need to look at Odradek himself, “a flat star-shaped spool for thread”, with “broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors”. Only that he isn’t just a spool, for Odradek is also a rather ominous presence, one that “lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall”, and so on.
Odradek might disappear for months, perhaps moving to other houses, but he always returns, stubborn Odradek, and if you try to talk to him, he’s happy to respond:
“Well, what's your name?” you ask him. “Odradek,” he says. “And where do you live?” “No fixed abode,” he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it.”
The narrator of Kafka’s very short story closes his narration pondering over Odradek’s lifespan, lamenting “He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful.”
It is thanks to Odradek — and you — that I can write this today. Because without Odradek I wouldn’t have a name to write about it. And because without you I would have to make his lurking about myself.
The talk
In the past few years it’s become imperative to talk candidly about Odradek. Celebrities do it, self-help gurus do it (monetising him), royal rejects do it, memoirists do it, social media users do it (often after receiving their diagnosis from Doctor Google), and yet you’ve remained quiet about him. What’s more, you’ve retreated into yourself and never even tried to write about Odradek, except for some indirect mentions here and there, never by name, about how you find some things impossible because of him. And yet faithful Odradek has never left you.
He still “lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall”. He occasionally visits you at night, or when you’ve had too much of something for too many days, or when alienation — and your Odradek is for the most part about alienation — gets too hard to bear. And some days it looks like he’ll survive you. Not necessarily kill you, but remain with you forever and beyond:
“Am I to suppose, then, that he will always be rolling down the stairs, with ends of thread trailing after him, right before the feet of my children, and my children’s children?”
Maybe you’ve never written about him because you know that writing about him won’t make him go away. But it’d be a pity not to write about poor Odradek. He means no harm at all, even when he causes actual harm.
Odradek’s different shapes
He rolls “down the stairs, with ends of thread trailing behind him”. He’s a spool of thread, but he has manyfold shapes.