A sad.short.story, in the style of the great Kafka.

There he was, under the table, with no idea of what was yet to come; the feeling of emptiness surrounded him.  He felt like as if  he was falling down in space, infinite space, with no end, and no comfort. Time is a hard thing to live with, time will never stop, for Jack Green, this was a hard fact to accept since his family and friends would always make sure they made him remember it. Day after day, same jokes that at the end of the day, it  did affect his feelings and would not leave his thoughts. So at this moment, this moment laying down in a fetal position under this old, simple, brown, wooden table, he felt free, yet alone. He felt like it was just him in this vast world. He could feel like he was going into a dream that didn’t have that soft and rewarding feeling you get once you know it is a dream. Jack was going into a state of mind with many unknowns, with many possible outcomes, and on top of all that, he was doing this completely on his own.

Time went by, he had no idea of what was going on, he was living in different versions of his life. He was a small dog, with the same brain abilities and same understanding of the world, yet he could not do anything to show that he had this knowledge; he was a brown dog, with small hair, and little spots of black covering him in random places. He felt like he could smell everything. It was as if he could see with his smell, he could identify a type of food, material or location with near perfect accuracy. At first he was unaware of his current physical condition; he went on by himself in this wonderland where everything felt normal except for the few changes, that he decide to ignore. He spent a few days in this form until he came to a mirror and realized that he was no longer human, he could not understand how this had happened. It was already hard enough for him to believe what was happening, and also had to endure this painful situation all by his lonesome. He found that as days went by, he started to see things that before were not there. He stated to see his children and wife looking at him, he started to recognize rooms and places that he had seen as a human before. It did not take long for him to find out that in fact he had gone from human to pet in about a week and that his children just wanted him to run after a tennis ball, and bring it back to them. Life as he knew it had turned into a surreal nightmare, he was now the pet dog of his family, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

He soon grew to the idea, he thought that at least this way he could see them grow, he could see how they would do in life, but only as an spectator, not as a part of it. Could that be the hardest and toughest punishment that he could get, to not be dead, but to be able to see what he wanted right there, so close yet so far, it was as if he had an infinitely huge unbreakable glass wall in front of him, and his family was on the other side, and somehow totally unaware of his existence.  He continued to do his best in being there, in seeing his family day after day, but eventually he grew older ,way fast than his children and wife, he started to feel weak, and hateful. Until one day, a day full of pain and suffering, came to a place where he had not been for years, a place that he had nearly forgotten. He had found amongst all this suffering and anger, the table. The wooden table, that had been the starting point of his doom, as soon as he saw it, he started to walk towards it, with his vision becoming narrower and narrower, his limbs feeling weaker and weaker. His heart beating slower with every passing second, until he was standing under it, at which point he fainted with an explosion of pain and thoughts, thoughts about his family. Silence followed, a calm environment surrounded him. He was not sure if he was still alive or if he had moved on to a better life, or what had happened to him.

He came to his senses and opened his eyes, to find himself in a room with his family looking straight at him, with a look of love and respect. He felt for a few seconds happiness, happiness he had not felt for many years. He thought he was finally home, yet, again he had no idea what was yet to come. He stood up from the floor and started to walk to his family, something was wrong because the room was all dark ,and the only thing he could make out was the stone floor. He then started to feel a force, like a rubber band around his waist pulling him into the dark, and the more he tried to get to them, the further away he would get.  After this no matter what he would do, he was now being pulled back constantly and further away from them. Until he could barely see them. Before he knew it, he was standing by himself alone in the dark, and saw how his family moved on without him, with no problems, and how he would never be remembered. Right after he had this thought his life ended, with no future no importance.