At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favorite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.
Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.”
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.
“It doesn’t look like my doll at all,” said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: “my travels have changed me.” the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home.
A year later Kafka died.
Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:
“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”
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Clever Journeys 
I hope, that Love comes back in another way.
Nice story.
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Beautiful, Jack! I read Franz Kafka’s writings in college. I also read about his life. He grew up with a brutally abusive father and his life was riddled with depression. Such a painful existence he lived. 💔
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Thank you. Yes, I read about him too. What a beautiful thing to do for such a soul. He did have some quirks, but as a near lifelong writer, I’m somewhat empathetic. Thank you.
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You’re welcome. I am too, Texas Jack. I love his writing and my heart breaks for him. I feel the pain he must’ve felt. Many creative writers and artists create from a place of pain.
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Franz Kafka, I’ve read of him, and some of his works. He said he kept his sanity by writing, and I suspect many of us do. Star Trek aficionados will remember the original series, where the computer is infested with an evil spirit, and he’s causing harm to the Enterprise and her inhabitants by manipulating things the computer controls. Spock has the computer calculate to the last digit of pi, and as pi is infinite, the computer is occupied on a task that won’t end and the spirit is ejected. To me, writing can be like that. I’m working on a Technical Blog entry, takes days, and I doubt 15 people will ever see it, but I’m doing it because it is more relaxing and diverting than reading the news.
William Hope Hodgson, another author I read, was born, and died (fighting during WWI), in years close to those of Kafka. He too had a vivid imagination that produced very interesting, evocative tales, and he was a sailor, so a moderate amount of his work centered around life at sea.
Manybooks[dot]net is a source of Free Books (ones no longer copyrighted), and Franz Kafka’s work (some of his work is in his native language on this site despite English Titling), and those of William Hope Hodgson, can be found at the following links and read online or downloaded:
https://manybooks.net/
https://manybooks.net/search-book?search=Franz%Kafka
https://manybooks.net/search-book?search=William%Hope%Hodgson
eBooks[at]Adelaide was the crème de la crème of Free Online Book Sources, apparently a University in Australia, but, horrors of horrors, they ceased operating. Their works were nicely formatted and the easiest to read.
Project Gutenberg is another source of Free Books, including the 2 authors I discussed above, but I’m not impressed with the site and extent of material on the searches I did just now.
https://www.gutenberg.org/
The story on Kafka, the little girl, and the doll, is very humanizing and I enjoyed it much.
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Thanks again.
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