Franz Kafka's 'An Old Manuscript' - the bare bones of existence. An Old Manuscript is a short prose-piece. Kafka is less interested in any panorama. Doesn't he very often take just one of the fundamentals of living within a society (or less frequently from the existence of a solitary creature) and shake it about a bit? Out of the society that inhabits An Old Manuscript he plucks 'safety' and gives it a rattle.
This tiny piece of writing sits there, economic and vivid, alongside other bare bones: guilt (The Trial), acknowledgement (A Hunger Artist), charity (The Bucket Rider) . . . Here the basic need for safety is simply put, and starkly put isn't it. People wake up, take their shutters down, and there in the city square, primitive nomad soldiers from the north, people who abominate dwelling houses, sharpen their swords and whittle arrows and practise their horsemanship.
The people for a short while do try to clean up the filth that these nomad soldiers make on the square, but that is quickly abandoned. The invading soldiers communicate in jackdaw-like screeches and grimaces, they take whatever they need, they grab at it and people must simply stand aside and leave them to it. Of course the butcher is particularly vulnerable: it's a basic within a basic: a 'thick' invading people is going to crave its own basic - meat. As soon as the butcher brings any in, the invaders snatch it all from him and gobble it up.
And, perhaps, there is a moment when the emperor who normally stays in the deep internal recesses of the palace, can be seen at a palace outer-window, leaning forward and looking out at the city square. And there is some kind of misunderstanding; there is no clear understanding of who should get rid of the stupids and of how to do it. 'Safety' always is a problem.
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