by Sean Dempsey | 04/06/24 There once were, in a certain indistinct corner of a Canadian kingdom whose borders were always expanding on paper yet never visited in person, two brothers who came into possession of adjoining lands. Yet possession in such a place was a delicate word; for everything, in truth, already belonged to […]
Tag: kafka
Kafka’s “The Trial” Analysis vs Dempsey’s “Justice”
Sean Dempsey’s short story “Justice” (which is an extract from his 2022 work “A Sad Collection of Short Stories, Cheap Parables, Amusing Anecdotes, & Covid-Inspired Bad Poetry”) works best when read not as a replacement for Kafka, but as a narrowing of Kafka’s nightmare. Kafka gives us the whole disease. Dempsey gives us the moment […]
The Obsolete Mr. Malum
By Sean Dempsey, 03/28/2025 This echo-filled chamber of judgment was not built to house men, but to erase them. Its walls were clean, without seams, without windows, without warmth. Light spilled from hidden fixtures like surgical lamps—cold, clinical, sterilizing. Every sound echoed twice. Each breath of the men and women in this dim legal sanctuary […]
Justice
By Sean Dempsey John awoke with a start as his bedroom door was kicked open. In a blur of confusion and panic, he found himself dragged out of bed by burly Policemen who blindfolded and transported him, half-naked, to a parked car. It sped off into the night immediately. At last the vehicle stopped and […]



