Digital Manuscript ProjectThat Time / Cette fois
A [0025] or talking to yourself who else out loud imaginary
conversations there was childhood for you ten or eleven on
a stone among the giant nettles making it up now one
voice now another till you were hoarse and they all sounded
the same well on into the night some moods in the black
dark or moonlight and they all out on the roads looking
for you
B [0026] or by the window in the dark harking to the owl not a [0027] Silence 10". [0028] Breath audible. [0029] After 3" eyes open.
thought in your head till hard to believe harder and hard-
er to believe you ever told anyone you loved them or any-
one you till just one of those things you kept making up
to keep the void out just another of those old tales to
keep the void from pouring in on top of you the shroud
you ever say I to yourself in your life come on now
(eyes close) could you ever say lI to yourself in your
life turning-point that was a great word with you before
they dried up altogether always having turning-points
[0030] and never but the one the first and last that time curled
up worm in slime when they lugged you out and wiped you
off and straightened you up never another after that
never looked back after that was that the time or was
that another time
B [0031] muttering that time together on the stone in the sun or
that time together on the towpath or that time together in
the sand that time that time making it up from there
as best you could always together somewhere in the sun
on the towpath facing downsstream into the sun sinking
and the bits of flotsam coming from behind and drifting
on or caught in the reeds the dead rat it looked like
came on you from behind and went drifting on till you
could see it no more
A [0032] that time you went back to look was the ruin still there
where you hid as a child that last time straight off the
ferry and up the rise to the high street to catch the
eleven neither right nor left only one thought in your
head not a curse for the old scenes the old names just
head down press on up the rise to the top and there
stood waiting with the nightbag till the truth began
to dawn
trying how that would work for a change not knowing who you
were from Adam no notion whio it was saying what you were
saying whose skull you were clapped up in whose moan had
you the way you were was that the time or was that another
[0033] time there alone with the portraits of the dead black
with dirt and antiquity and the dates on the frames in
case you might get the century wrong not believing it
could be you till they put you out in the rain at
closing-time
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That Time / Cette fois © 2022 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: James Little and Vincent Neyt