A Call to Arms
by A.D. MacDonald

e had been awake for days, furiously scribbling a pastiche of one of Kafka's aphorisms.

"You know, animism is no longer in fashion," I said to him from my spot in the corner. "Nobody will want to read it, I'm afraid, and you'll be a failure."

"But Gogol did it, Kafka did it, Hoffman did it--why can't I?"

"Precisely because it has been done so many times. In the literature of the future, lamps must remain lamps, bookshelves must remain bookshelves, and noses, well, noses must remain on the face. You must understand that an author breathing life into inanimate objects is a common sight these days, such that the true revolutionaries of tomorrow will be those who keep them in their place."

After mulling this over, he slapped down his pen, marring the desk's surface, and crumpled up the draft he had been working on.

"It is impossible to argue with such logic," he conceded. Then, with gritty resolve, he reached down and unplugged himself, leaving me alone and laughing in the dark.

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A native of Edmonton, Alberta, A.D. MacDonald spends his free time selflessly promoting Alberta beef, following the wisdom of the Almighty Turnip, and writing. His fiction and poetry have appeared sporadically on the internet and in print, so if you try hard enough you might find them. Or not.

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