Free Cages by Chris Pasley Page B

a giant cockroach and his family hates
him for it.  Oooh, how prescient.  Oooh, how like our present
situation!  Jeez."
 Mr. Jarvis was smiling now, humoring me.  "Don't you think we
should use literature to examine our own lives?"
    I had a dozen replies Remi
would have loved, but none Conyers would have approved of.  I chose a
middle route.  "I think that Kafka's metaphor for transfiguring
change gives us nothing we don't already know.  And I think literature
should be used to cast light on our lives from new angles, not reinforce old
ones."
    "Mr. Jarvis?" A bl ack-haired girl in a green sweater and thick
black glasses raised her hand.
    "Yes, Kate?"
    She looked right at me. 
"I think Sam's full of crap."
    Jarvis was beaming now as he tried
to scoot himself out of the debate.  "How so?"
    Kate chewed on her lip for a
moment, looking at me.  Just when I thought she wasn't going to answer she
spoke up.  "Literature isn't about how we can put a happy filter on
bad situations.  It's not finding ways to look at things that are
fundamentally different from how we understand them.  It's about finding
different ways to express fundamental truths as the author understands them,
and in the post-Outbreak era, The Metamorphosis is as exact a metaphor as
we're going to find to describe our situation.  So it's hopeless.  So
it's grim.  So what?  It's our life and we need to learn to deal with
it."
    Clapping from around the
group, and I had to admit, she was a firecracker.  I tried not to smile; I
enjoyed a worthy opponent, but so far only the teachers themselves ever had
been.  This was a new sort of challenge.  "But, Kate , at
what time does a metaphor stop being a metaphor?  At what point does it
become not a literary tool of comparison but a undisputed fact?  When
Kafka's metamorphosis became real, the power the words had to evoke disgust and
revulsion disappeared in a new wave of sentimentalism and empathy.  It's
no longer a metaphor.  Our monster metamorphosis is real, and as such,
doesn't benefit from a fictional event about the same thing."
    No claps for me - clearly this
was Kate's home team - but they could tell a good jab when they saw one. 
    Kate rolled her eyes ,
blown large by her glasses . 
"Please.  The metamorphosis may have closer ties to modern life than
it did in Kafka's time, but there's still a message there for anyone holding
out hope that things will go back to the way they used to be before they got to
Quarantine.  You are a burden.  They hate you.  And in the end
they will kill you and leave you to die.  That's what we should take away
from Kafka and the sooner we all learn that, the better."
     Crap .  I really
didn't like to lose.
    After club-time was over I
stuck my hand out to Kate in the hall.  "You got the better of
me.  Don't expect it to happen too often."
    She brushed past me, ignoring
my hand.  "Screw you."
    I grinned.  "I think
you're taking Kafka a little too much to heart, Kate."
 After club time I went to see Conyers.  He asked me about my day,
and I told him.  He asked about Kate, and I told him about our
encounter.  Then he told me to stay away from her.
    "But...why?" I
asked, disappointed. 
    Conyers just tapped the side
of his nose.

C hapter Five
     

 
    Dave Tinder looked like an
All-American boy.  He was the ideal, the good-natured athelete, the
straight-A student, the grinning volunteer.  He was a basketball star, and
a baseball star, and a solid soccer player.  He could do basic
calculus.  Before Quarantine he went to secret parties and got casually drunk and gave everyone
around him thumbs-ups.  He wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up, maybe a
District Attorney like on TV.  Or a baseball player, but let's not get
ahead of ourselves - he was good, but was he that good? 
Maybe.  Dave Tinder played by the rules and the world patted him on the
back for it.
    Dave Tinder was a lie.
    He first realized there was
something wrong with the world, he