IJ study archive

Poor Tony's Withdrawal and seizure — "After more time time then ceased…"

quote

After more time time then ceased to move or be moved or be move-throughable and assumed a shape above and apart, a huge, musty-feathered, orange-eyed wingless fowl hunched incontinent atop the stall, with a kind of watchful but deeply uncaring personality that didn’t seem keen on Poor Tony Krause as a person at all, or to wish him well. Not one little bit. It spoke to him from atop the stall, the same things, over and over. They were unrepeatable. Nothing in even Poor Tony’s grim life-experience prepared him for the experience of time with a shape and an odor, squatting

Context

The junkie slang ("The Old Cold Bird") made literal flesh: time stops flowing altogether and perches, a personality that doesn't wish him well, repeating unrepeatable things. Carlisle catches that the incontinent fowl atop the stall exactly mirrors the man hunched incontinent inside it — sufferer and tormentor one shape. Note the raw's "move or be moved or be move-throughable" and the doubled "time time" — DFW's text, not transcription slips.

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