The Story Of The Nothing.
{Photo via Pinterest}
From the vast expanse of blackness arose a shuddering, softly wailing wind.
It blew in from the southeast, a tumbling reminder of the existence of life elsewhere on the planet. Here was nothing, not land, not even water. Just blank space that led to nowhere, from nowhere. Yet… if you went far enough into nothing, surely you were to come out somewhere where people still lived, still breathed, still ate food and watered themselves accordingly.
Where they didn’t even know, were never even aware, of the nothingness that existed, just beyond the borders of their imaginations.
Nobody knows how the nothing got there. Some say it was there forever, others say it was brought there by something. A happening of some kind. What that happening might be, well, we can only speculate. But speculation can be fun.
It might have been that there was a storm.
One night, in a boring little unsuspecting town, there was a lightning flash that woke up the whole town. Not figuratively; literally, the whole town woke up. It was so bright that it left an after-mark — it was as if the sun had decided to hang out at 2 am, for no apparent reason. Only one little man and his wrinkly wife cared to bother to wonder why.
Everybody, it seems, was somehow still asleep, if you catch the drift. But not the man and the wrinkly lady.
They woke up, eyes open wide, gazing at the nighttime sky filled up with light. Electric. Slow. Burning. Like a lazy, sliding serpent moving slowly through the midday heat of a desert. To match their insane, perfectly understandable, curiosity. They finally tore their eyes away from the sky to look at each other, slowly, unblinking.
What is happening? This impossible storm loomed over them, like an unwelcome circus tent made of light. There was no guessing what the storm had it store for them — only that there was more.
The man and the woman intuited that they must move. It was not wise to stay where they were, yet the difficult task of evacuation was made more difficult by the way the thing mesmerized them, holding their eyes until one tore them away in sorry remembrance. Remembrance of the feeling in their hearts: the feeling of danger.
But the reality itself was beyond danger: it held nothing in promise.
So they put some clothes in a bag and packed some water and blankets, though it was quite a warm night. They kept quiet, unsure of why but knowing that it would not be good to stir their neighbors from their wakeful trance. They walked softly, communicating in gestures, feeling vitalized by the final awakening. They were both very old.
They reached an old Gingko Tree. It stood tall, massive, and thick as many men. It stood witness to the passage of time, of reason, of madness and of melancholy. It knew of it all, yet it only knew now.
The woman lifted her small arms to the lowest branch and pulled off a few nuts, and packed them in her bag; more to keep a little of home with her wherever they roamed, and less as a certain sustenance.
There was only the three of them, standing on the tallest hill. They watched as the sky grew brighter, the odd shape in the sky getting expanded and shiny, as if it were a balloon being blown to its capacity. As if the thing were about to burst into a hundred tiny, fragmented pieces of life, or death, depending on your stance.
The people in their houses didn’t avert their eyes, nor even did they flinch or change positions. They just stared, unaware, unthinking, unknowing. Not even really feeling the affects the old woman and man could feel in their veins, like something was getting tighter and fastening its grip upon the mortal biology. They placed their hands on the tree. It was time to go.
The man and the woman looked to the east. The only dark patch of sky left for the whole horizon appeared in the southeast. They went forward, following the darkness as their guide to safety.
If they would have looked behind them as they walked away, they would have seen the way the sky began to vibrate, grow, belch out a treacherous gleam of hot light that sent searing into the eyes of every man and woman and child. It destroyed them instantaneously. Every body grew bright as the sun, then dim as the evening sand. It was empty.
The ground beneath began to tremble. The old man and woman could feel it in their steps, but they kept walking, sturdily, with no hesitation in pace. They felt the rush of decay come and wash up behind them like a wave, but it never touched them. It couldn’t. They were knowers.
The earth itself tore apart, exposing a gap that spilled out a noxious, all-pervading fire that ripped the limbs off every dead human body, tore roots from the ground and sent trees up in flames. It made every thing dust, and then less than dust. There was not a thing.
Everything was consumed in this horrifying brilliance — that is to say, if anything can be horrifying or brilliant if nothing is there to witness it.
Then the fire went out. And what was left, we can only guess upon, for nothing has no barriers, no borders to come upon like a river or a lake.
It is not.
*****
Amanda Maloney is a witchy feminine creature nestled in between the hills, rivers and valleys of the magically feminine Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She loves horses, learning something new from everyone, play, being fabulous, and finding that spot of connection in all human affairs that she believes is the residence of God. These days she is learning how to live from a plan, while also staying engaged in an active, organic, improvisational dance with Life. She devotes her time to practicing Orgasmic Meditation [OM], training as a life coach, and having engaging, nourishing conversations. Oh, and writing. If you want to contact her or see more of her witchy literary confections, visit her on her blog.
{Go Deep Into Your Nothingness}
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