Gregor Abend was not ill, though the doctor insisted otherwise.
He rose every morning at six o’clock, washed with soap, and dressed in the same gray suit he had worn to the office for years. He carried himself upright, nodded politely to the landlady in the stairwell, and took the tram with the others—clerks, messengers, petty officials—all moving with that peculiar mixture of fatigue and punctuality. His routine was without blemish, a routine he had polished smooth as glass.
Yet the complaint was lodged against him.
It came without warning, written on a slip of paper the Manager handed him in the glass chamber at work. The chamber itself was unnerving—four transparent walls rising in the middle of the office floor, so that everyone could see inside yet none could hear what was spoken. The Manager sat opposite him, sliding the slip across the table as though it might contaminate him.
The slip bore only two words:
“Subject exhibits Dust.”
It was underlined twice.
Gregor turned the slip over, expecting further explanation, but the back was blank. “I don’t understand,” he whispered.
“You needn’t understand,” the Manager said, glancing at the clerks pressing their faces discreetly against the glass. “It’s sufficient that it has been observed. Measures will follow.”
That evening, a man in a gray coat visited his apartment. The man produced jars and instruments from a black case, arranging them across the kitchen counter. Without asking permission, he placed small jars on every shelf, in the cupboard, even in the narrow space above the wardrobe. Each jar had a thin neck and a cork stopper, like traps for invisible insects.
“What are they for?” Gregor asked.
The man in gray scratched on a clipboard, not lifting his head. “Routine measure. Nothing personal. Dust is elusive. Best to contain it early.”
“But I have no dust. I clean every week.”
The man looked up for the first time, his eyes gray as his coat. “That’s what they all say.”
He closed the last jar, bowed slightly, and left.
Gregor inspected each shelf with a candle after the man departed. There was nothing unusual—no dust, no particles, no dirt. The jars sat patiently, expectant. He went to bed uneasy.
At the office the following morning, his colleagues behaved as though he had become faintly transparent. They did not sit beside him in the canteen; they hesitated to accept papers from his hand. The Manager, attempting kindness, ordered a bell jar installed on his desk—a transparent cylinder, tall enough for him to sit within, complete with a hinged slot through which documents could be passed.
“This is for your protection,” the Manager said.
“From what?”
The Manager smiled gently. “From yourself.”
And so Gregor worked inside the jar. His breath fogged the glass at times, forcing him to wipe it with his sleeve. The clerks nodded approvingly when they passed, as though his isolation demonstrated exemplary discipline. He reassured himself this was temporary.
Surely the complaint would be overturned, the jars in his flat removed, the bell jar taken away. Surely.
But the jars in his apartment began to fill.
It was faint at first: a gray smear inside the glass, a delicate film like breath on a windowpane. He held one against the candlelight, convinced it was an illusion, but no—the smear grew day by day, thickening into clumps. He opened one jar out of defiance. A puff of gray escaped, dispersed into the air, and settled into the carpet.
From then on, the corners of his apartment accumulated patches of dust, faint as shadows. He swept them away with a rag, but by morning they returned, thicker. They clung to the skirting boards, drifted down from the ceiling, gathered between his books. He spent hours scrubbing, wiping, polishing—yet the gray returned, as though the air itself were exhaling fatigue.
When he sneezed, the handkerchief emerged with gray smears.
Soon the neighbors noticed. They left notes beneath his door:
We know.
Keep it to yourself.
Don’t spread it.
Ashamed, Gregor avoided them, slipping out only at dawn to catch the tram. But even there he saw passengers glance at his shoulders, as if expecting to see gray flecks gathering on his collar.
The doctor summoned him. The office smelled of antiseptic and resignation.
“You are afflicted with Dust,” the doctor said, as though stating a fact too obvious to dispute.
“But I feel no pain,” Gregor protested.
“That is typical. The Dust conceals itself in function. You appear to work, you appear to live. But the substance accumulates invisibly, until one day—” He shrugged.
“Can it be cured?”
The doctor pressed his fingertips together. “Cure? No. Contained, perhaps. You must avoid disturbance. Do not stir the Dust. Do not dwell on it. Silence, rest, patience.”
“But what if it grows worse?”
The doctor’s eyes were grave. “Then you will learn how deep it settles.”
Gregor obeyed. He spoke less. He stepped lightly. He avoided mentioning the Dust, even to himself. At the office, he filed reports with immaculate neatness inside the bell jar. He stopped looking at the jars in his flat. If he ignored them, perhaps they would stop filling.
But silence was not enough.
The Dust thickened. It gathered under his fingernails, in the folds of his suit, between the letters of the reports he typed. The words themselves seemed to fade, as though the Dust blotted the ink.
His colleagues adapted efficiently. They refused to touch the papers he passed them, instead waiting until he left the office to move them with tongs into another pile. He heard them whispering behind his back: Exhibits Dust… best not to touch…
The Manager summoned him again to the glass chamber. “There have been complaints,” he said, not unkindly. “The Dust unsettles the others.”
“I can’t help it,” Gregor said.
“Of course not. That is why we must take further measures.”
And so a second bell jar was placed around the first, sealing him in doubly. His desk now resembled a display in a museum: Gregor Abend, Clerk, Exhibit of Dust.
The nights grew unbearable. He returned to his apartment to find the Dust no longer confined to corners. It lay across the bed like a blanket, drifted from the ceiling in silent cascades, swirled around the lampshade like moths. Breathing filled his lungs with grit. He coughed but produced only more Dust.
He tried to sweep, but the broom left streaks, rearranging the Dust rather than removing it. He tried to wash, but the water turned gray. He tried to burn it, but the smoke thickened, coating his tongue, his eyes, his thoughts.
Once, in desperation, he opened every window wide. The Dust surged outward, only to swirl back in, carried on an unseen current. The neighbors leaned out of their own windows, coughing, covering their mouths, pointing. Notes appeared again under his door: Selfish. Contagious. Contain yourself.
The Dust crept into his sleep.
He dreamed of corridors filled with jars, each containing swirling storms. He dreamed of clerks sitting at desks inside bell jars, their faces expressionless, their papers dissolving into gray sludge. He dreamed of the Manager, his body entirely translucent, speaking in muffled tones: Work continues, dustlessly, endlessly, perfectly.
He awoke to find the dream clinging to him, the Dust layered thicker on his skin. He scraped at his arms with his fingernails until they bled, but beneath the blood lay only more Dust.
Weeks passed—though time itself felt obscured, as though the Dust dulled the clocks. His colleagues now avoided looking at him altogether. The bell jars grew clouded, reducing his world to a blurred circle. He no longer saw faces clearly, only smudges moving at a distance.
The Manager appeared one day outside the jar, distorted by the glass. His voice came muffled, almost gentle: “It is time, Gregor. The Dust has settled too deeply. You must go below.”
“Below?” Gregor repeated.
“Where it belongs.”
He was led—though he could not recall walking—through corridors, stairwells, endless doors, until he stood at the mouth of a narrow stair descending into shadow. Officials in gray coats waited there, holding jars, clipboards, and ropes. Without resistance, he was bound, the ropes cutting softly into his wrists like threads of obligation.
They began to lower him down.
The descent was endless. The walls closed in with each level, coated in gray fur like the inside of an animal’s throat. The ropes slackened steadily, and he felt himself sinking into a thickness heavier than air. His breath grew shallow, each inhale laden with grit. The officials above dwindled into tiny silhouettes, then vanished entirely.
He tried to call out, but his voice produced only a puff of Dust.
Down and down he went, past chambers filled with others like him—clerks, messengers, officials—all seated within bell jars, their faces blurred, their hands scribbling endlessly though the paper dissolved before their pens. None looked up as he passed.
Deeper still, until no chambers remained, only the Dust itself, swirling thick as a sea. It pressed against him from all sides, seeping into his eyes, his ears, his mouth. He could no longer tell if he was descending or being consumed.
The ropes dissolved.
He fell freely, sinking without end. The Dust closed over him, grain by grain, blotting his thoughts, muffling his breath, burying his name.
And in that final silence, he understood what the doctor had meant: the Dust was not illness, not accident, not complaint.
It was himself.