2 Minute Worlds

One day, when he was forty years old, he was taking a walk in a park in Berlin when he met a little girl who was crying. When he asked her what was wrong, she told him that her favorite doll was lost. Kafka searched for the doll with her, but they couldn’t find it.

Kafka told the girl to meet him there again the next day, and that they would try once more to look for her doll.

The next day, when the doll was still nowhere to be found, Kafka handed the girl a letter — written by the doll herself. In the letter, it said:

“My dear friend, don’t cry! I have gone on a journey around the world, and I will tell you all about my wonderful adventures.”

And so began a story that would continue until the very end of Kafka’s life.

Each time they met, Kafka would bring a new “letter from the doll,” filled with tales of fantastic journeys and delightful adventures. The girl would listen, her heart comforted by the words, believing they came from her beloved doll.

Finally, one day Kafka brought her a new doll and said that her old one had returned from her travels around the world.

The girl looked at it and said, “But this doll doesn’t look like mine at all!”

Kafka handed her another letter from the doll. In it, the doll had written:

“My travels around the world have changed me.”

The little girl hugged the doll tightly and happily took her home.

A year later, Kafka passed away.

Many years after that, when the girl had grown into a young woman, she found the same doll again. As she turned it over in her hands, she discovered a hidden letter inside — signed by Franz Kafka himself.

It read:

“Everything you love will, one day, be lost.
But in the end, love will return to you —
though perhaps in a different form.”

(Based on a true story about Franz Kafka
Author: Larissa Theule
Illustrator: Rebecca Green)