Void Fragments

[JoeApocaLips]

My NaNoGenMo 2025 contribution :

Void Fragments

Smells Like Beckett Spirit.

A murmuring machine... A Beckettian Text Generator...

A procedural text generator inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Texts for Nothing.

This program produces a continuous, fragmented monologue that echoes Beckett’s late style:

• voice without a body
• speech that circles around silence
• repetition without progress
• questions without answers
• the obligation to speak despite having nothing to say

The output is a single text file, structured in six generative modes, each capturing a distinct tonality from Texts for Nothing (1–13):

• Mode A: Raw lexical shards — sparse, aphoristic fragments (Texts 1–5)
• Mode B: Interrogative vertigo — obsessive doubt, modal paralysis (Texts 6, 10–11)
• Mode C: Continuous murmuring — flowing recursive voice (Text 13)
• Mode D: Compulsive repetition — looping phrases, “again the same” (Texts 3, 5, 7)
• Mode E: Pure negation — impossibility, aporia, “cannot” (Texts 2, 4, 8)
• Mode F: Anatomy of absence — catalogues of deprivation (“no body, no name…”) (Texts 1, 6, 9)

All sentences are either drawn from a curated set of original meta-phrases or generated through constrained templates using weighted lexical choices (nouns, verbs, adverbs) consistent with Beckett’s thematic universe.

"The voice, source of the void" repository : Void Fragments on GitHub

The book w source code

Output Sample :

One should whisper, but she cannot whisper
Impossible to can, yet she continues
Not to speak, never to speak, and yet speak
He cannot repeat, he goes repeat
One should know, but know changes nothing

To continue or not to continue, makes no difference
One should continue, but one cannot
He wants to have, but cannot
Must one mean, even without sense?

She does not know if she speaks, but she speaks
Who continues? one, perhaps, or no one
Who continues? it, perhaps, or no one
Is understanding enough?

Who speaks? me, perhaps, or someone else
does she persist, or is it silence?

I cannot speak, I speak, I cannot be silent
She wants to persist, but cannot
One should have, but one cannot
One wants to feel, but cannot
is that enough?

She looks for a word, but finds no word
No voice, and yet she stays
She speaks, without eye, without place, without knowing why
to be silent is to speak, but to speak is to fail
does it mean anything?

He speaks without past, without future, without present
It stays, it does not know why
Is it simply over?
No memory, no word, and yet have
not there, and yet there, always there

One would like to can, but can is not possible
One tries to stay, but stay is impossible
One continues to say nothing, that’s already something
It looks for a shadow, but finds no shadow
without memory, without trace, and yet I know
I look for a word, but finds no word

I look for a time, but find nothing
I look for a memory, but find nothing
There is a voice that waits, that’s all one knows

He is not there, he is somewhere there
She is without past, without future, without present
He is there, always there, dumbly there
and after that?
one ought to fall silent, but silence speaks

One continues, without presence, without mind, without knowing why
Do I whisper, or is it silence?
after that?
Somewhere here, already there, dumbly nowhere, and she is
It cannot be silent, it goes be silent