Thoughts Waiting To Be Read

He opens his black laptop computer while lying on the sofa, thinking about what to write. What to write… Thinking of words to type, ideas to develop, and thoughts to contextualize in the Word document that glanced at him blankly through the computer screen.

“September 30, 2010,” he told the Word document, “Title.” He couldn’t think of anything else to tell the blank document gazing at him.

Meanwhile, his mind was walking through a dark street, nothing could be seen. As ideas started to enlighten his mind, the road started to shine different things in the sidewalk: lonely pedestrians walking, alienated people, and his mind just stared at them.

“Alienation!” he shouted to the Word document.

But he thought to himself, ‘I cannot only talk about alienation and that’s it. It would be boring to read, even to myself.’ So he kept staring at the Word document, and the only thing he could do was start writing about nothing. He started writing, “He opens his black laptop computer while lying on the sofa, thinking about what to write. What to write…”

He continued telling the Word document:

As the reader, or viewer, of Krapp’s Last Tape experiences the re-telling of his life through a series of memories captures in various tapes, he is able to perceive that, throughout the course of his life, Krapp has steadily distanced himself from the companionship and love that other people cherish. He tells us that at the age of twenty-nine he lived with a woman named Bianca, “at that time I think I was still living on and off with Bianca in Kedar Street. Well out of that, Jesus yes! Hopeless business. Not much about her, apart from a tribute to her eyes” (Krapp’s Last Tape). This hopeless situation that entangles Krapp throughout his life leads him to become isolated from his surrounding to the point he feel completely alienated from every detail of his life. Therefore, in this scenery we see of himself being old, with his tape, is the only way he can feel back the warmth of love and companionship in his life.

He stopped writing. He thought about the part where Krapp had mentioned about the death of his mother. Meanwhile his mind, in that street where he saw lonely pedestrians and alienated people, some hopeless ones started to appear. Hope. Hopeless.

In the moment his mother died, Krapp began to feel completely alone. Hence, hopeless: “I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes” (Krapp’s Last Tape). This isolation he started to feel in the world after the death of his mother leads him to plant himself completely hopeless in life. His isolation is self inflicted. He buries himself under his own oblivion. And in the end, his only way of alleviate this alienation is by listening to his last tape.

Wow. He wrote a lot in the last thirty minutes. The Word document had passed from being an empty face, to being a face full of expressions. Those letters, signifying something, would wait to be read, as those in Krapp’s tape. His mind would continue walking in that street, where the lonely pedestrians, alienated people, and hopeless character stroll in the side walk. Meanwhile, the words are nothing until the moment they enter someone’s mind and recreate that street.

“Save,” he told the Word document, “this is enough for today.”