Deal Me In Challenge: Dabchick by Haruki Murakami

Card Drawn:

"The little palm-sized dabchicks taste so bad you couldn't get a dog to eat one."

Murakami does his best to channel Kafka in this nightmarish and funny story about the absurd and oppressive bureaucratic system. The protagonist in "Dabchick" finds himself trapped in a literal and metaphorical labyrinth of bureaucratic nonsense. The term Kafkaesque would certainly be appropriate to describe this story, especially regarding its hallucinatory aspects and critique of authority. 

The protagonist is starting a new job at some faceless corporation and finds himself lost in a maze of corridors trying to find the office. He eventually locates the correct door after what seems like an eternity but is then met by a guard that denies him access because the correct password is required. Their comedic exchange makes up the bulk of the story and is meant to be ridiculous. Perhaps Murakami is excoriating the absurdity of functional hierarchy, useless policies and perfunctory regulations that depersonalize the individual caught up in the machinations of bureaucracy. However, this is probably just me over-analyzing the text since I do not get the sense that Murakami's aim is to provide some kind of profound social commentary. The dark satirical humor and complete absurdity of it all is what makes this story memorable. The ending is hilarious in all of its anthropomorphic splendor with the dabchick boss sitting at his desk thinking about death and getting angry over the intercom at the protagonist being late for work. The surrealism of this scene alone is enough to crack me up.