have done) walk out to the downstream tip of the Isle and, beneath a
　　　　  replica of the Statue of Liberty (a further fixed-point conflation
　　　　  -- this time of old and new worlds), contemplate the Seine, "How in
　　　　  joyous eddies its two arms conflowed and flowed united on" (286).
　　　　  Biography and reality could effectively trade places with stage, as
　　　　  the narrative subsumes reality within its fictional confines. Fact
　　　　  and fiction lose meaning but gain vast informational surprise in
　　　　  their commingling.
　　　　  The vast number of mutually intersecting and interfering layers
　　　　  which constitute Ohio Impromptu are simply too difficult to
　　　　  understand from a rational point of view. We must instead see the
　　　　  play not as a series of distinct signs and images but as a dynamic
　　　　  system of relationships which, while altering all of its double and
　　　　  triple parts in a dense, impenetrable flux, is stable as a system, a
　　　　  system beyond logic and causality, the system of Mu,(39) or
　　　　  No-thing-ness into which L and R (etc.) apparently enter during the
　　　　  play's final moment. Presence and absence, stage and narrative, and
　　　　  so on, are abandoned as viable constructs, and ". . . if being or
　　　　  lack of being cannot be figured, at least some shape or pattern,
　　　　  however faint, can be traced against the void."(40)
　　　　  If Ohio Impromptu is primarily systemic and relational, then the
　　　　  images with which we have been dealing reveal that these
　　　　  relationships are the "without-context" of self-reflecting and
　　　　  refracting images with no stable "thing" to reflect. In other words,
　　　　  the play can be described in terms of a specific koan:(41) "What do
　　　　  two facing mirrors reflect?" Without a subject (or object) between
　　　　  them, the mirrors can only reflect each other -- but what image
　　　　  would that produce? If we choose an element of the play that most
　　　　  readily reveals this vision, the final image of L and R facing each
　　　　  other in "profounds of mind. Of mindlessness" must certainly jump
　　　　  Out (288). These two men, "As alike in appearance as possible . . .
　　　　  , raise their heads and look at each other. Unblinking.
　　　　  Expressionless" (285, 288). In their "stone" stare, these two lose
　　　　  subjectivity ". . . thus blindly mirroring each other"(42) across a
　　　　  relational context of "without-self" This final tableau is at once
　　　　  (again pairs being destabilized) the "mirror koan" and its
　　　　  resolution, as the two become the koan, losing any sense of
　　　　  subjectivity in their "stone" stares. Because of their subjective