The Trace of a Headache

In Kafka's diaries, he writes about a headache that feels like an inner leprosy. The image of the dissecting knife slides back and forth over while it slices membranes close to working brain parts. He also fantasizes about lying on the floor, sliced up like a roast and pushing one of those pieces of meat to a dog in the corner. And so this knife image is just part of his repertoire. It went from being an image for a really bad headache to an image for love in this, you know, constant refashioning.