ESTRAGON:
Well, shall we go?
VLADIMIR:
Yes, let's go.
(They do not move.)

(Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Act I)

The Invading Army

The needle pricked his skin and a whimper crawled up his throat. The pain was unbearable. He clenched his fists, pressed his lips together and grimaced.

The tattoo artist asked him if everything was all right, and Richard had to push the moan tumbling back down so he could finally answer ‘Yes’. The tattoo artist then said ‘Good, because the pain is about to get worse’, pressing the needle back on his skin.

The little man clawing and crawling its way up reached his mouth and wrenched it open, letting a long groan free. The tattoo artist paused.

‘We can stop if you want, you know?’

‘No, I don’t have time to waste. We have a dinner reservation. I can take it’, sneaking in a wink at his girlfriend.

‘You’re the boss.’

With an army scrabbling its way up his throat, he felt a surge of excruciating pain when the needle reached his ankle. He closed his eyes and seized his girlfriend’s hand. She gave it a light squeeze.

O Choro do Chorão

Um pequeno rio em que nadavam juntas duas pequenas rãs verdes. Se pudessemos dizer que animais têm emoções, era claro que aquelas rãs estavam felizes e sem preocupações. No entanto, um chorão enorme tinha os seus ramos caídos parecendo verter um rio de lágrimas, do qual as duas rãs se aproveitavam inocentemente.

Ao lado daquele rio estava eu, deitada na relva com a cabeça caída a chorar na sombra do chorão.

Ouvi as rãs a coaxar e olhei para o rio. Já não estavam juntas. Tinham-se separado e uma delas estava no lado oposto, procurando afastar-se do seu ex-amigo. A água do rio tinha subido, quase como se o chorão tivesse recomeçado a chorar. Voltei a deitar a cabeça, com os olhos em lágrimas, não apenas por mim, mas também por aquelas rãs que se tinham separado.

Virei-me de barriga para o ar e olhei para o céu, anteriormente nublado, agora escuro, a ameaçar uma violenta tempestade tropical.

O rio ao meu lado espelhava os ramos do chorão. Reparei que a árvore tinha imensas rugas vincadas no seu tronco e apercebi-me que já devia ter assistido a muitos casais a cortar relações. Aquele rompimento entre as rãs, era apenas mais um casal a terminar o namoro.

Uma brisa morna acariciou a minha pele e atirou o meu cabelo para trás dos ombros. Era verão e eu estava de férias. Devia estar feliz. Mas não.

Subitamente começou a trovejar. Senti-me esmagada pela chuva, derretida pelo calor, e pela humidade, e espantada com a minha tristeza.

An Empty Wardrobe

"At the age of not quite three, I realized that my recently born sister had grown in my mother’s uterus. I was not at all pleased about the new baby and suspected, gloomily, that my mother’s body might be harbouring yet more children. The wardrobe symbolized the maternal womb to me; I therefore demanded to see inside the cupboard, and to that end I applied to my big brother. As other material shows, an older brother can replace a father as a little boy’s rival. Apart from my well-founded suspicion that this brother was responsible for putting the absent nursemaid in prison, I also feared that he had somehow implanted the new-born child in my mother’s body. My sense of disappointment when the wardrobe proved empty arose from the superficial motivation of my childish demand, and was misplaced in relation to my deeper level of feeling. On the other hand, my great satisfaction at noting my mother’s slender figure on her return is fully comprehensible only on that deeper level."

Freud in The psychopathology of everyday life

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
(Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act V, Scene V,)