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1: Is Hell other people?

2: “Could Hell be described as too much of anything without a break?”

1: These issues of time are, at the moment, too vague.

2: Can two people ever enter into a space of shared

time?1: How do you mean? A space in that time ows evenlyfor both people, or a space in time which both people

are able to enter into? Time is still too vague.

2: Time, moments, a compilation of moments. Am I

a self in relation to moments, or am I a compilation ofmoments into a self?

1: Am I a time in relation to selves, or am I a self in relation to and existing in time?

2: Am I my life, or is my life me?

Exit Time

Britanny Burr and Syd PeacockMount Royal University, Calgary, Canada

A Dialogue

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1: But are we going to just ask each other questions all night and sip coffee into the moon?

2: Even when I am alone, I am existing with others.

1: Then you believe yourself to be the compilation ofothers. Am I talking to myself as I am here talking to you?

2: Are you really talking to me, though? You askquestions, but who will answer them? Can I really give

you an answer that will satisfy? Are you talking to theother, the “other people” who make up Hell, or are youtalking to a self that you are a part of? The other makesup my self; therefore, there is a contradiction for is therean(other).

1: If every self is a compilation of others, then is there a self? Is there an(other)?

2: Our immediate reactions with the world are in amanner of orientation. How are we oriented with othersand/or in relation to others?

1: Isn’t there a difference between existing as anorientation from or towards an(other) and affect?

2: But even the act of being born is a relation, a literalorient from someone, some (other), and you’re named,and you’re born a son or a daughter, but only oncean(other) sees this quality of a self before the person.

1: Inez has no eyes.

2: But she is only recognized as having no eyes byEstelle, the one who cannot see her self in Inez’s eyes;therefore, deeming them non-existent.

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1: Garcin has eyes.

2: Estelle sees herself in his “manly” eyes. She doesn’t just see herself, she nds herself. She nds herexistence.

1: Then let’s forget all of time that existed outside of Hell.

2: Yeah, but what’s time, Syd?

1: I don’t know, Brit. Check my watch.

2: Your watch? The watch that is oriented on your wrist? The watch that you can look down at and see at anangle, which I cannot? If I look at your watch, do I enterinto a shared time with you?

1: God, I hope so.

2: This hallway. This is Hell?

1: It can’t be. We can walk down one way, or the other,or stop, and say Hello! to a near friend, or even anenemy. We aren’t stuck with each other. Our time isn’t

stuck with each other. We aren’t in a shared time like thecharacters in the play. Perhaps, Hell isn’t other people,

but Hell is entering into a shared time with people.

2: But when the door opens, they choose to choosenot to choose. And remain.

1: Yet they remain in remains. They are silenced in this moment, but not the kind of Silence that Kierkegaard holds dear. Their “choice to choose not to choose,” as you say, I think, is too responsible for them. I think their lack of choice isn’t a choice at all, but an avoidance of

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the leap of faith. They are choosing to remain with the Hell they know rather than what waits outside the door. And in this way, they are imprisoned. Their remains remain.

2: So you’re saying that rather than choosing to choosenot to choose, they are simply not choosing.

1: Right.

2: And the imprisonment lies in the lack of choice.

1: But not lack of choice, because the door does open.Of course, it opens, but they do not choose. They

remain.

2: But they choose to remain.

1: I don’t know if that can be a choice!

2: So, then, where does the Hell lie? In imprisonment?In other people? In the lack of choice, or in the choice?

1: Maybe all of the above. Let’s get back to time.

2: Okay. The telling of time is my orientation.

1: So Hell is a lack of time. The eternal clock wherethe hands keep skipping, and you can’t nish tying your

shoes in time, and you never need as much time to tie your shoes.

2: Do the characters in No Exit have all the time, or notime?

1: Do we have to pick?

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2: They do, don’t you say?

1: I don’t know. But I do know that right now I could be late for something and that only matters if there’s something to be late for. But for these guys, their time moves slower in the play than the people who are still living, whom they’re watching. But time isn’t really moving slower for them. They don’t have time. They have nothing but time.

2: So having no time is having all time. And here we areat the end of the hallway. Out of space, and out of time.

1: Right now, Brit. You and I part. There is no leap of faithfor that. There is hardly even a choice. As our time ows

in a direction, we part slowly. Even if you keep checking

my watch, we part. 2: Exit time.

Syd Peacock currently studies English and Philosophy at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. Syd enjoysreading, writing, and visiting friends who have pets.

Britanny Burr will be graduating this spring with a Bach-elor of Arts with a major in English and a minor in Phi-losophy from Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.She enjoys creative writing, feminist philosophy, and criti-cal theory.