"The cry indicates in a simple and powerful way that the inflexibility of the world has yielded at one point. The enemy killed, the animal captured and devoured, the woman possessed, but also the looming death and the defeat suffered and the body and soul torn apart are, since mortals appeared on earth, the cardinal points where the inflexibility of the world gives way. Until that moment, the inflexible order of the world is a wall that cannot be scratched, or at least one hopes it cannot be scratched: the points where the inflexible is bent, flexed, are both outside and inside the screamer. The cry is the crash of the wall cracking, just as thunder is the crash of lightning cracking the crystal of the sky. The crack – the bending of the inflexible – tears the cry from the mortal, just as lightning tears thunder from the sky. Crack and cry are one and the same, in the sense that the cry is not the object of a decision. But the cracking of the inflexible is the becoming of the world. The bending is the “work” that generates the world. The points of bending are the various ways in which the world becomes. The cry indicates the becoming of the world, expresses it, mirrors it, just as thunder mirrors lightning. It is the primordial word. But it is also ambiguous. (p. 47)"