I don't own pokemon but I do own Gregor
Cutting room floor of Mystery Dungeon.
One
morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he
discovered that in bed he had been changed into a Chikorita. He lay
on his leaf-coated back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little,
his green body. From this height the blanket, covering his entire
body, could hardly move. His small pointy legs, pitifully thin in
comparison to the rest of his circumference, flailed helplessly
before his eyes. "What's happened to me," he thought. It
was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only
somewhat too large, lay quietly between the four well-known walls.
Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of sample cloth
goods was spread out—Samsa was a Pokemon Trainer—hung the picture
which he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago
and set in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a
fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the
direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire
forearm had disappeared. Gregor's glance then turned to the
window. The dreary weather—the rain drops were falling audibly down
on the metal window ledge—made him quite melancholy. "Why don't
I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this
foolishness," he thought. "O God," he thought, "what a
demanding job I've chosen! Day in, day out, on the road. The
stresses of training are much greater than the work going on at the
League, and, in addition to that, I have to cope with the problems of
travelling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food,
temporary and constantly changing human relationships, which never
come from the heart. To hell with it all!" He felt a slight itching
on the top of his leaf. He slowly pushed himself on his back closer
to the bed post so that he could lift his head more easily, found the
itchy part, and wanted to feel the place with his leg. But he
retracted it immediately, for they were too small to even reach. He
slid back again into his earlier position. "This getting up early,"
he thought, "makes a trainer quite idiotic. A trainer must have his
sleep. Other trainers live like harem women. For instance, when I
come back to the Pokemon Center during the course of the morning to
write up the necessary orders, these trainers are just sitting down
to breakfast. Still, who knows whether that mightn't be really good
for me? If I didn't hold back for my parents' sake, I'd have
quit ages ago. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train
leaves at five o'clock." He looked over at the alarm clock
ticking away by the chest of drawers. "Good God!" he thought. It
was half past six, and the hands were going quietly on. It was past
the half hour, already nearly quarter to. Could the alarm have failed
to ring? One saw from the bed that it was properly set for four
o'clock. Certainly it had rung. Yes, but was it possible to sleep
through that noise which made the furniture shake? Now, it is true he
had not slept quietly, but evidently he had slept all the more
deeply. Still, what should he do now? Apart from a really excessive
drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor in fact felt quite well and
even had a really strong appetite. "Gregor," a voice called—it was his mother!—"it's
quarter to seven. Don't you want to be on your way?" The soft
voice! Gregor was startled when he heard his voice answering. It was
clearly and unmistakably his earlier voice, but he could only say the
name of the creature he became. Gregor wanted to answer in detail and
explain everything, but in these circumstances he confined himself to
saying, "Chika! Chika!" Because of the wooden door the change in
Gregor's voice was not really noticeable outside, so his mother
calmed down with this explanation and shuffled off. However, as a
result of the short conversation, the other family members became
aware that Gregor was unexpectedly still at home, and already his
father was knocking on one side door, weakly but with his fist.
"Gregor, Gregor," he called out, "what's going on?" And,
after a short while, he urged him on again in a deeper voice:
"Gregor! Gregor!" At the other side door, however, his sister
knocked lightly. "Gregor? Are you all right? Do you need anything?"
Gregor directed answers in both directions, "Chika! Chika!" He
made an effort with the most careful articulation and inserted long
pauses between the individual words to remove everything remarkable
from his voice. His father turned back to his breakfast. However, the
sister whispered, "Gregor, open the door—I beg you." Gregor had
no intention of opening the door, but congratulated himself on his
precaution, acquired from travelling, of locking all doors during the
As he was thinking all this
over in the greatest haste, without being able to make the decision
to get out of bed—the alarm clock was indicating exactly quarter to
seven—there was a cautious knock on the door by the head of the
bed.
night, even at home.
What will happen next? Find out next time on POKEMON!