beginning with the inner relationship of the characters on stage and
　　　　  in the narrative.
　　　　  After reading of characters matching L's and R's descriptions who
　　　　  are "[B]uried in who knows what profounds of mind. Of mindlessness,"
　　　　  the pair on stage seems to mirror the narrative pair, as they are
　　　　  also "turned to stone" in a stare which calls to mind the
　　　　  death-birth image so common to Beckett's plays (288). At this point
　　　　  we see in the stage characters both the advent of unconsciousness
　　　　  and the possibility of a new state of consciousness (heralded in
　　　　  part by the simultaneity of their "lower[ing] their right hands to
　　　　  [the] table") in the final words of the "sad tale" and final tableau
　　　　  of the play (288). In these "stone" stares, which both the story and
　　　　  stage pair share, there is obviously an element of "mindlessness" --
　　　　  an escape from conscious consciousness -- yet at the same time, some
　　　　  vague notion that the characters are indeed very aware; only at a
　　　　  different level than would normally constitute awareness. If there
　　　　  is reason to believe that these characters disrupt the flow of our
　　　　  conventional understanding of consciousness and reality, moving on
　　　　  to something else, then what is this something else? What state of
　　　　  mind are these pairs of characters moving toward, and where do their
　　　　  minds go if they are no longer utilizing the normative mode of
　　　　  consciousness where events are separated and linguistic signs
　　　　  indicate unique conceptual signifiers?
　　　　  Though Beckett eschewed any knowledge of Oriental mysticism, there
　　　　  are striking parallels between the final moment of Ohio Impromptu
　　　　  and the experience which Zen mystics call Satori or enlightenment;
　　　　  and there are striking parallels between the play as a whole and the
　　　　  Zen koan, a short, riddle-like device used by Zen masters in China,
　　　　  Japan, and other far-eastern countries to lead their followers to
　　　　  enlightenment. The koan, a brief, paradoxical, sometimes humorous
　　　　  statement, often couched in a small story, which can be used to
　　　　  "awaken" the struggling student, bears many similarities to the four
　　　　  page "playlet" about two pairs of men who take solace in the ritual
　　　　  reading of a (their?) story. Further, as Yasunari Takahashi notes,
　　　　  Beckett started writing plays at the point in the history of the
　　　　  Western theater where all realistic conventions of drama, including
　　　　  the assumptions that the theater has nothing to do with the sacred,
　　　　  broke down, and it seems to be that, in his ruthless effort to strip