My wife invited Samuel Beckett to our house for lunch on my birthday, but he ignored the meal and our attempts to engage him in conversation. He sat in silence and sucked on a small stone, eyes closed, like a baby calmed by a pacifier, if the baby were an old man more than thirty years dead. Outside, curtains of rain hung limply as he sat disinterested. Even so, the sun shone through the windows of the front room. Our dog lolled in the light. When we finished eating, he took the stone from his mouth and put it in his pocket. He stood up and left, as silent in exit as he was at the table. We watched him walk down our driveway then veer left toward our neighbor’s house. He entered without knocking. The rain stopped. We heard laughter. “Well,” my wife said, dumbfounded, “are there any other writers you’d like to invite over?”