Okay, the title of this post is a bit misleading. Google isn't honoring me by proxy or by anything. Google is honoring Franz Kafka, specifically his novella The Metamorphosis. This strange story, about a man who turns into a cockroach, was a huge influence for my novella As a Machine and Parts. Why is The Metamorphosis Google-doodle worthy? I'm sure there are plenty of cultural and literary reasons, many of which are beyond my contemporary, America-centric grasp. The story of a human man—a traveling salesman—changing into the most reviled household insect pest ever is certainly a commentary on something. More important to me, though, is how The Metamorphosis affected my reading and writing aesthetic. Specifically, the idea of an un-acknowledged—and in this case, origin-less—change. There's something magical (Magical Realist, some might say, others might not) about a surreal event that garners the level of non-reaction it does in The Metamorphosis.…