Inconceivable

Coming to That:

“If it comes to that,” he said, “there’ll be no

preventing it.”

He uttered it as I listened. Had I got it right,

hearing him?

“If it comes to that,” is what he said, and,

as if talking

to himself, went on about how there’d be no

preventing it.

He came to that conclusion, saying it in a

slow way of

coming to that, whatever that was it might

come to before

not being prevented—and as if such a thing

were for him

the unthinkable, and would prevail, if it

came to that.

 

And while listening more closely now to

what he said,

I realized if no one paid him heed, it would

be as if he

hadn’t said it—if it came to that—and would

then not be

prevented from falling to forces known to

care little for

what he said, even if they heard it, their

being wily

and forceful enough to make sure it would

come to that.

Dorothea Tanning.