Otobiographies, Or How a Torn and Disembodied Ear Hears a Promise of Death (A Prearranged Meeting between Yvonne Sherwood and John D. Caputo and the Book of Amos and

Suppose, in turn, that these words are spoken not by us but to us. Would not the very fact that we hear them mean that we are not dead, so that the words come at most, at worst, as a warning that we are in mortal danger? Even if we are told we are about to be overcome by an overwhelming force that we cannot hope to avoid, still, if we are alive enough to hear these words, would there not still be hope of escape? Does not time always insert some interval between us and death?5 Is not some promise still held out even in this promise of our death? Is not the end that is foreseen by that very fact always already forestalled?