The Nothing here
The Nothing here
(0)
Q Woods
On a little boat far away from land, in the middle of a great ocean, under a very hot sun shimmering in the sky, where clouds, hot and sweaty turned north and a thirsty bird flew high in the air, there was a NOTHING.
That was all, quite simply a NOTHING, a nought, null, nill, a zero.
It didn’t look like very much, in fact it didn’t look like anything at all, it looked like nothing.
It wasn’t, isn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t and any other ..n’t that you can think of. It sat there on the little boat and…that’s right…it did nothing.
And nothing happened to the NOTHING, an absolute nill. It wasn’t sad, happy, angry or bored, no feelings came out at all. It didn’t talk, walk, jump or skip, it didn’t move. It was there, and just there, and this was all very fine.
Now I can see that you might not have much interest in this NOTHING, and I can’t say that I blame you. A NOTHING doesn’t seem to be very interesting at all. Indeed, you are probably fed up right now, especially so if you have read so far and nothing has happened.
Occasionally the wind would blow, and the little boat would drift in some direction, and the NOTHING would continue to do nothing.
Then, one day, a bird flew overhead, saw the boat, and having flown so far, for so long, it decided to rest. It landed on the floor of the boat and with an awkward jump, its feet lurched forward, knocked against a plug, that popped out. The boat quickly filled with water, and sank to the bottom of the ocean, NOTHING and all.
That seems to be that. However, as the NOTHING was nothing, nothing happened and the NOTHING sank gently down into the ocean. Further into the blue sea went the NOTHING and just before it dropped onto the sandy floor it was sucked up by a Giant Clam who was minding its own business, siphoning plankton, absorbing the warm sun, and generally happy with its lot, until, that is, it unwittingly gulped this NOTHING down into its mouth.
‘@Gulp~#!’ went the Clam.
For the NOTHING this was a surprise. Something had happened.
It stopped being nothing, considered its new surroundings, decided to ignore it and continued not to be!
The perplexed Clam was not so at peace with this thing, which was a NOTHING, clogging up its insides making it cough and splutter and heave. It mashed and chomped down on the NOTHING, turning it about and around, over and under, rested, started again, doing its best to mush down the NOTHING into bite sized, siphonable bits, but it was no good, nothing happened to the NOTHING. Like chewing a balloon that won’t burst, that won’t be bitten or mashed, that just simply won’t!
The tired Clam had tried to push the NOTHING through its gills but couldn’t because the NOTHING wasn’t and wouldn’t be.
So it left the NOTHING in the bottom of its stomach and went unhappily about its way. Its large foot reached out of its shell and hoofed itself off.
For a while the Clam considered the NOTHING lump in its stomach as a minor irritation, but slowly that empty lump seemed to grow bigger and harder and heavier. Like a stone in your shoe, this NOTHING was a painful annoyance. There was very little to like about this lump as it rolled around the Clam’s tummy, blocking tubes, curdling the Clam’s digestive juices into a bubbly froth.
The Clam, sick and hungry, lay on the ocean floor, burping unpleasantly. The Clam’s tummy would fill with gas from the curdled liquids and swell and release in heavy bubbles of burp under the sea. These weighty burps would wobbly up to the surface and burst into the air.
The poor clam was quite ill and decided to have a think about things.
It had another think.
Then another.
Then, after a number of other deep thinks, it concluded that this empty lump in its tummy was too chewy, had no taste, curdled its liquids into big bubbles of burp and had to be removed. So, the Clam reached out with its foot clasped onto a rock and lifted itself up and opened its mouth. The slimy NOTHING tipped up and slipped out of the Clam’s mouth and into the salty sea and down under the rock.
The sickly Clam felt immediately better and hopped off on its foot to a quiet place to siphon and feed in peace.
The NOTHING opened its eye and looked around this new spot under a rock. It was pleased and set about, in a very concentrated manner to be nothing. Nothingness, a beautiful bareness, an empty, unfilled space sitting under a rock in the wide ocean.
Very little happened over the next ten million years and the NOTHING was happy with this. The odd current of water spun the NOTHING around a bit and some sand was sprayed on it by an amorous White Spotted Puffer fish making patterns in the sand.
The NOTHING saw none of this and according to its philosophy, if it wasn’t then that wasn’t, and that was that. The NOTHING continued not being.
Then one day in the middle of the fifteenth millionth year, there was a tremendous earthquake. The sea was pushed back and a great mass of land heaved up out of the ocean and the NOTHING was left high and dry on a wide, flat rocky plateau.
You may think, reader, that the NOTHING, being witness to such dramatic geological upheaval, would be just a little affected, that some sensations might have stirred deep inside its emptiness. But no, a full diddley squat was felt, a blank, a naught, a nothingness and the NOTHING, quite determined not to be, had no reaction, not the smallest twitch.
Much time passed and the world around became very busy. The NOTHING stayed in the same spot and eight thousand years later the land developed strange organic growths and outcrops on its surface. In the damp climate, fat leaved grasses and plants flourished, many creatures ran about, often eating each other, but that is the way of the world. Tall trees, leafy bushes and shrubs, swollen flowers dripping colour, insects buzzed and hummed and the air was full with life and warmth.
Bubbly pools of rich clear water quenched the thirst of a thousand creatures and the NOTHING saw nothing. Life evolved all around the NOTHING, but the NOTHING wasn’t, so according to the NOTHING’s theory, everything around couldn’t be, was an impossibility, didn’t exist and wasn’t there.
‘I am not’ said the NOTHING.
‘Therefore it isn’t!’ it went on.
One morning, while the NOTHING was trying sooo hard to be nothing, a mushroom spore drifted on a light breeze and floated down under the NOTHING and began to grow. Its mycelium spread its threads all about until one morning when the humidity was just right, the temperature perfect and the air still, a mushroom grew. Its wide cap pushed up out of the ground and reached up into the air with the NOTHING sitting on top exposed to the gaze of the sun and the blowing breezes.
Inside the NOTHING an eye opened, looked about, shivered slightly, and closed again.
The mushroom grew, matured, bore spore, dried, and shrivelled to a wrinkled ball. The NOTHING slid down under the long fat grass with the shrinking mushroom and was quite content with its place hidden away.
However, the next morning the sun rose, warmed the damp ground, germinated the many mushroom spores and lots of plump mushrooms grew under the NOTHING, pushing it up into the air, exposed to the gaze of the sun and the blowing wind. They grew, matured, bore spore, dried, and shrivelled to withered little balls in the grass. The NOTHING slid down with the shrivelling fungi and was at peace again.
The very next morning the exact same happened. This time hundreds of full mushrooms grew beneath the NOTHING, pushing it up into the air, under the sun and out into the day time. A curious sheep sniffed it, a slug slopped over it, an ant took a bite!
‘?Aarraghhhh?!’ Went the NOTHING.
At last, the mushroom caps opened, spread their spore, dried, and shrunk down again with the NOTHING. Safe in its nook the Nothing began again to be nothing, a happy, empty space in the grass.
But the next morning it happened again. The sun shone, warmed the moist ground and this time hundreds of thousands of lovely pudgy, fleshy mushrooms rose into the air, displayed their caps to the sun, opened and spread their spore. The NOTHING was heaved up and up and held aloft by the floor of mushrooms caps and was becoming quite distressed.
All this activity was not supposed to be, should not be happening, could not be possible, but was.
The NOTHING balanced precariously upon the mushrooms suffered greatly and its little eye wobbled and shook harder each day as the great field of mushrooms grew beneath it. Then in the evening, to its relief, darkness would fold over the land and the NOTHING would slip down, down snug beneath the grass.
Day after day the NOTHING was pushed up and pulled down again and it was all very upsetting, until one day the mushrooms didn’t grow and the rain came.
Long streams of rain fell from a thick, grey sky and soaked into the soft earth. The ground became a soft, squishy mess of mucky green grass and watery earth.
The NOTHING was turned and ever so slowly tumbled over and under, sinking deeper into the earth. In a short time the Nothing had sunk far into the ground, leaving only muddy bubbles behind.
For a long while the rain poured down, but the NOTHING way below the ground was hidden deep in the earth. No more pushing up or down, no more sheep or slugs or being gazed at by the sun, blown by a breeze or tumbled and rumbled by the mushrooms. No more of anything, just the beautiful, blissful nothing of emptiness. The NOTHING now continued, with expert precision, not to be.
Friends and dear readers I’m sure that having read so far you must be quite exasperated at the absolute zero effect the world was having upon the NOTHING. The NOTHING was quite determined not to be and no matter what happened, what may happen, or what didn’t happen the NOTHING strove on with its quest of beautiful non-being.
But this is not the end of the story. Though the NOTHING lay buried in the earth for a long time, its saga was not finished. The NOTHING was surrounded by warm clay and over time plants and trees grew and their roots curled and wrapped around it. The earth and plants held the NOTHING still.
For a while at least.
After seven and a half million years there was a landslide.
The land had changed and, unknown to the NOTHING, the ground had slowly heaved up to form a rolling hill. When one day an earth tremor from a far-off quake shook the hill. Its muddy sides shuddered and slid down into the sea.
The NOTHING was pulled away from the roots that had held it so long and was twisted up to the surface of the earth. It popped out, bounced with the sliding hill, hit a small tuft of earth that sent it flying through the air, above the foaming, muddy sea that swallowed the hill, and landed on a small wooden boat.
The boat jolted away from a wedge that had caught it and was taken by a mild current that pulled it and the NOTHING away from the land and out into the sea.
The boat drifted further and further into the silence of a still ocean. The NOTHING’s eye opened and the NOTHING saw this and was pleased. It closed its eye and continued in a very peaceful and focused manner, for ever and ever not to be.
THE END
Dear reader, how else do I end this story. The NOTHING would not, could not change. The NOTHING lives forever. Is this so bad? Perhaps the NOTHING might have realised, or thought, it was something and spent the length of the story seeking that something, searching for an essence of its being only to return to its true essence, that of empty nothingness. Finding your true ‘essence’ can be distracting and looking outside can pull you away from what it might be to truly ‘be’.
Or the NOTHING could have simply disappeared in a puff. But why? If there is SOMETHING then THERE IS also Nothing. And Nothing must exist in order for Something to be.
What, I also ask is, wrong with Nothing? An Empty space can be filled, or it can be left empty. Try being Nothing for even just a few moments. The beautiful feeling of peace that emptiness brings, liberates you from all the busy somethings happening around you.
‘There’s always something!’ I hear every day.
Try ‘Here’s a little bit of NOTHING.’ For a moment, and free yourself.
I’m leaving it up to you, reader, listener, watcher, speaker, exister:)