NaPoWriMo challenges you to write a surreal prose poem. For inspiration, check out Franz Kafka’s collection of short parables

In the labyrinth of the midnight city, streets bend and whisper under the weight of silence. Buildings stretch like long-necked swans towards a moon that flickers, a stuttering candle snuffed and relit by an unseen hand. A man walks alone, his shadow sprawling ahead like a dark, liquid prophecy. Each step echoes, a lonely clap against the cobblestones that are cold and watchful as the eyes of dead fish.

He arrives at a door—a peculiar door, painted in the hue of forgetfulness—that swings open to reveal a staircase spiraling downwards into a lightless gulp. Descending, the air grows thick, woven with the breath of hidden creatures; it smells of old books and secrets. With each step, his memories lighten, leaving behind whispers that cling to the walls like dampness.

At the bottom, a garden awaits, lush and grotesque, where flowers bloom with the faces of those he once knew. They turn towards him, petals twisting into smiles and frowns, their fragrance a chorus of lost voices. Among these floral visages, a river flows—thin and silver as a thread used to sew the horizon to the sky. He kneels to drink, but the water slips through him, feeding a hunger he cannot name.

Above, the stairs no longer climb to the city he recalls, but coil further into a distance speckled with the soft glow of windows from impossible houses. Each window reveals a different scene: a woman weeping into her hands, a child laughing with a mouth full of stars, an old painter drawing his last breath, his palette a burst of unfinished dreams.

The man realizes he cannot return; the path has swallowed itself. So he walks among the whispering flowers, his hands fading into translucence, his thoughts scattering like mist. Here, in the surreal embrace of a world folded upon itself, he finds solace in the notion that perhaps, he was always meant to be lost.