“I have only to go on, as if there were something to be done, something begun, somewhere to go. It all boils down to a question of words, I must not forget this…”
– Samuel Beckett, The Unnameable –
Waiting for the passerby to pass. Contingency. To not open the door until the potential for harm is past. No apparent harm: adult man, skin color variance, divergent ethnicity, strolling outside the iron black gate surrounding my home, gesturing toward and addressing my small pet mammal (a dog) – ostensibly safely contained and separate – from the strange-other, (“stranger”) traveling past my abode on a designated path “outside,” a public sidewalk… yet no harm is ever apparent, or we’d be almost certain to avoid it.
From behind the closed door, thus abandoning the small animal, the “pet” that I care for (“care”? – to keep alive with food and water, activity and touch – for what reasons I have never understood, it seems something we do, or something done to us) in any case (who “us”?) to me (“me”?), in any case, in every case, (what is “case”? – case is what occurs), in any case the sensation that harm is imminent, is possible, that any/every-thing (or case) harbors potential threat – intrusion, oppression, obligation, response-ability – that ANY passer(s)-by may enforce (force what in?), force “presence” (presence: the pressure of an other)…occurring-with.
Mammal, woman, weather, man. Peril of change, of inevitable occurring, alteration, the inception of a “case.” Event. Permutation. Disaster. Perhaps.
Wait for “it” to pass (ambiguous constancy of language, of pronouns, of perhaps). To be.
No apparent harm, harm always arriving where not apparent, otherwise averted.
Therefore damage expected everywhere, until proven otherwise or bypassed, for when has it ever been the “case” that harm, hurt, or affliction were not lurking unaware?
Always caught “off-guard” when injured. As in “accident,” or un-fore-seen. Must not not-fore-see. Avoid wreckage.
He passes by. Or she, or it, or they (ambiguous language and malleable, eminently referable, transferable, vague for application). No harm incurred (as far as is known). As who knows? Who might know? Or what?
World transforms. Passers-by. Incidents. We have a “case” (who – “we”?). “I” step back, step in, amidst walls, barriers, rooms. “I” retreat. Evading catastrophe. Probable hardship. Imaginable uncertainty. Such is the “case,” my “cave,” a cave uncertain, unreliable, self-designated, no one knows. This (what “this”?) is vague – hurt has always materialized unexpectedly. Danger is disaster, or if not, no harm no foul, never wounded by suspecting, only oblivious or uninformed. Must anticipate harm. Less proven guiltless. Never guiltless. Never harm without an-other, without outside, without obscurity. What is “with-out”?
When ever not with-out? With-out always. With. No in without with-out. Danger of disaster. Any definability requiring with-out. No in without out. Being with out.
Waiting for passersby to pass. Bye.
When have I been harmed when I expected? Perhaps in love, perhaps adventure. Any venture with out. Into the without. Within without. Knowing I was risking with the out. “Self-harm.” It would appear without’s within as well. Never not another. Abysmal and ubiquitous. Possibly impossible: to be without with-out. No reference or referral without being-with “out.”
No within then. Only out could be. In with in? Self-same. Tautology. A=A. How A without out? Without not-A? Without absence, other, space, not-line, shapelessness, void? A=A because A is distinguishable from. Distinct. From – ? Without.
Why “without”? Why not only “with” – necessarily out or other? Variant. Different. Without “out” no “with.”
Squirrel, leaves, air, skin. Cells, organs, activities and processes. Even what’s “in” is “out” for “with.” “In” “with” “out.” A=A. So say. Think. “I.” Passing by. Table, paper, pen, without prompting “in.” In without as well. No “in.” A=A. IN WITH OUT.
Out the “within.” Without in/out. Writing. Saying. Bleeding. Breathing.
Only think with out. All out, away, a way.
Wait for a way to away. Within/Without. A/A. No equals. Never equal.
Pet mammal dog, own voice, man, woman, child, sensation, language, molecule, atmosphere, ground: without with-in.
WITH, then. Simply with. No out, no in. All danger and disaster, potential and unsuspected harm. Can not. Unprotected. Only WITH. No out, no in.
Waiting for the passers-by. Passing. Bye.
Polysemic Stupor 