Kelly Caner
Professor Vaun
Novels and Tales
October 25, 2013 ‘The Metamorphosis’ Alternate Ending There was a small tap sound as Gregor’s hard shell of a body met the bare wooden floor. Gregor rested his tired head onto the ground and began to fall into a trance like state as the house began to fill with Gregor’s favorite sound, his sister’s violin playing. Gregor’s antennas and legs fell limp as his entire body found rest, for what seemed, the first time not only in his insect life, but his former human one as well. Gregor lost himself in the music, all inhibitions, whether human or insect, seemed to be extinct. He just lied there, letting the calm wash over him. Gregor stayed like that for twenty minutes, unaware of how the room was darkening and the coldness was closing in on the house. Gregor was so engrossed in the violin playing that he concentrated on nothing else, which was problematic because there was indeed a clutter of footsteps approaching the door in which Gregor’s head was poked out of. It was as though someone poured a bucket of ice water on Gregor’s warm, resting body. Gregor’s body shot up in alarm when a large foot came smashing down onto one of Gregor’s sensitive antennae, and then rubbed their foot in it to increase the pain. A squeaking sound emanated from Gregor’s chest, his legs squirmed. The strong foot that was crushing Gregor’s antennae was the foot of his father’s, as he looked up at the man above him he saw his father holding an ax in his hands. His father’s face was emotionless; he stared down as Gregor’s wiggling body, no light in his eyes, his lips in a hard straight line. Gregor stared at up at his father, knowing and somehow unsure of what could happen. His father harbored hatred for Gregor ever since the change; he knew that, but murder? Could a father murder his own son, despite the appearance he had? Gregor saw his mother come from behind his father and she crouched beside Gregor, she scanned his entire shell, from the tips his antennas to the bottom of his abdomen. Gregor watched tears fall from his mother’s face, her hands trembling as they fearfully touched Gregor’s hard face. She gently placed a kiss on his cheek and whispered, “I’m sorry this monster of a body formation stole your body and life from you. We miss Gregor, goodbye” and slowly back into the wall. Gregor’s eyes began to scan the room anxiously, having no doubt of what was going to happen: his own family was going to murder him. The house was filled with a mixture of sounds, the violin still playing, which Gregor assumed was playing in order to keep him calm, his mother’s weeping, getting increasingly louder and the sound of his father’s grip tightening around the ax that would soon be impaled into Gregor’s shell. Gregor was an abomination in his family’s eyes, worthless and a burden to them. Nothing positive resulted in this