Metamorphosis

Scene: A Late Night on the Balcony – Jessica and Sam Discuss Metamorphosis

The night air was warm, the ocean stretching into blackness beyond the balcony. Jessica sat on the railing, one knee pulled up, cigarette between her fingers. Sam leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the table between them, next to a well-worn copy of Metamorphosis.

Jessica exhaled smoke into the night. “Let me guess. You think I’ll see myself in Gregor Samsa.”

Sam gave a small shrug. “Do you?”

She studied the cigarette, watching the ember glow. “Man wakes up one day and finds he’s something else. Everyone who knew him looks at him like a stranger. Like he’s not even human anymore.” She took a drag. “Yeah. I get it.”

Sam let that sit between them for a moment. “Difference is, Samsa didn’t get a choice.”

Jessica scoffed, flicking ash into the night. “Neither did I.”

Sam tilted his head, considering her. “Didn’t you?”

Jessica turned, fixing him with a sharp look. “They made me, Sam. Rewrote me. Wiped out who I was and built something else. Where’s the choice in that?”

Sam met her gaze, steady. “You could’ve stayed Jason.”

She opened her mouth, then stopped.

Sam took a sip from his glass. “Gregor Samsa let the world decide what he was. Never fought back. Just lay there, waiting for them to get rid of him.” He looked at her. “You didn’t.”

Jessica flicked the cigarette over the railing, watching the ember disappear before exhaling slowly. “Maybe not. But I still don’t know if what I am now is real.”

Sam set his glass down. “You ever think maybe that’s not the point?”

Jessica frowned. “What do you mean?”

Sam picked up the book, flipping it open. “Gregor turns into something else, and his family stops seeing him as their son. Brother. They shut him away, let him rot. But if you really look at it… he was still there.” He tapped the page. “Maybe the real tragedy isn’t that he changed. It’s that no one let him be who he became.”

Jessica stared at him. Then, quietly: “And you think that’s me.”

Sam’s expression didn’t change. “I think you keep waiting for someone to tell you who you’re supposed to be. And maybe that’s the real trap.”

Jessica pressed her fingers against her temple, exhaling. “So what? I just decide I’m real and that’s enough?”

Sam smirked. “Worked for Descartes.”

Jessica huffed a laugh. “Oh, now we’re doing Cogito, ergo sum?”

He gestured at her. “Hey, you’re the one standing on a balcony having an existential crisis over Kafka.”

Jessica shook her head, rubbing her forehead. “God, you’re insufferable.”

Sam grinned. “And yet, here you are.”

She didn’t respond right away. Just let the weight of it settle.

Finally, she hopped off the railing, brushing past him to grab the bottle. She poured another glass, then turned back. “If I ever wake up as a giant cockroach, shoot me.”

Sam raised his own glass. “Deal.”

Jessica clinked hers against his, took a sip, and for the first time in a long time, felt like maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t trapped inside her own skin anymore.