A Story by Jordan Barlam

The Horror of Nothing

The world that we all love so much, upon which our ancestors roamed and children someday shall, is in a constant state of self-consumption. This is not one man’s simple opinion, but rather a statement of common fact. Ask any scientist and they will tell you the exact same story. The molecules and atoms of our body have been recycled countless times, borrowing mass from the food that we eat and then submitting our lifeless bodies back to the Earth for our former food to munch upon. In another strange perversion of human understanding, far too much difference is placed between the living and inanimate when both are so closely intertwined. Just as each living being to live must surrender their bodies back to inanimate soil, so to does our living mass come from the dead food that we have eaten in turn.

This simple statement of fact is, of course, complicated by the one factor that possesses no matter of its own. I speak now of the mind, or the soul, as some of more spiritual sense would word it. Not possessing mass, it is harder to prove that each one is in turn recycled. Are they also recycled as the cycle of life and death moves on, or do they merely accumulate, creating ever-larger hordes of ghosts to live among the living. Surely not, for this would be a fate far worse than death in and of itself. For this reason, humans have created heaven and hell, places for these souls to go so that they need not linger among the living. For reasons of my own, I do not believe in a heaven or hell, but rather in the recycling and accumulation of souls.

Surely, you must think me mad. After all, how can one being have more than one soul? Yet, it makes perfect sense to one of my sharpness of mind. When a human body is buried, the soul of corpse, devoid of a heaven or hell, is doomed to become a soul to soil (and the soil has many souls, so wonder not where the term “holy ground” originates). After some time, it becomes the soul to a plant. When the plant is eaten, then, what do you suppose happens to the soul? There is no body to inter, and too much of the plant’s form is used by the eater to simply say that the soul is left with defecation (as those of holy bents would be particularly loathe to assume).

By now, you can probably guess that I believe in the antiquated belief known as animism, and why wouldn’t I? A soul cannot simply depart when its body has died, and so objects are left with souls. Also, when an object is eaten, the devourer must imbibe at least part of its soul. It is common sense to anyone possessing sound mind and spirit. How much of the soul is imbibed, and what becomes of these excess souls, is beyond my realm of knowledge, as matters of the soul are hard to quantify. Those followers of animism try to take this natural process one step further, by trying to determine the function of these excess souls. Some drink the blood or eat the organs of animals, hoping to gain their qualities, while others keep mementos such as the claws or teeth of their prey, hoping to utilize the soul of the animal directly (most often for some form of protection). These people, after experimenting with these practices of souls for years, have had their science debunked. Of course the “science” of today cannot support it. As I have said, matters of the soul are incredibly difficult to quantify.

By now, you may wonder why I support the supposedly savage practice of animism, which is today defined as a primitive belief. The answer is simple, perhaps surprisingly so. I am a writer. As such, I have seen the process of animism work hundreds of times. After all, inspiration, in the most technical sense, is a lesser form of animism. Should a practitioner of true animism wish for the strength of a bear, they might talk to bears, wear one’s teeth as a necklace, or dwell in one’s cave. Meanwhile, should I wish to write on the topic of murderers, I might question one in jail, carry around one’s knife, or live in the house of a victim. As a true animist tries to take power from the bear, so do I seek to pry less material benefits from my current muse.

There is, however, a great difference between the animist and me. While the aforementioned animist seeks to accumulate a soul, to add it to himself, I merely add more inspiration to my soul, using whatever other aeons and spirits available, real or fabricated, merely to glimpse once more upon inspiration.

This difference, although seemingly of insignificance, has perhaps saved my soul on multiple locations. Many of my stories have been on spirits, on horror, or on the aforementioned murderers. If I had sought to add the souls of such concepts to my own, I may have been driven past the realms of sanity, if not killed outright. No, animism, despite its apparent material boons, runs a terrible risk, for if the wrong spirit is met, the results could be catastrophic…

While most great stories of note begin with inspiration, mine’s begins with a lack of that commodity. Having written all that I could think off, I was inspired by nothing. I sat for what seemed like days on end in front of blank paper and pencil for something to inspire me. I was most surprised, therefore, that inspiration should come from nothing. I speak not from nothing immaterial, the emptiness that I wished inspiration to fill. I speak of nothing material, the void that we can neither see nor detect but that we continue to quantify nonetheless. I don’t quite know what attracted me to this topic, but if my vague suspicions are correct, I seek not to give it a name. To give something so terrible a name is to fully acknowledge its existence.

The topic seemed simple enough, for even words left unwritten seemed to communicate the message clearly. But as all are bound to learn in life, ease is the most fragile of all glamours (or, upon reflection, perhaps the second-most fragile). I could not sell a book of blank pages for no one would buy. Yet, I could not truly write on the topic for I could not truly understand it. I know now that the human mind simply cannot accept a material nothing, treating its presence as an absence of all else to help preserve its own sanity. To further exacerbate my internal strife, I realized that my tried-and-true technique would not work, for how could I submerge myself within nothing?

The problem troubled me for weeks before I had the nerve to lift my pen to paper, but each attempt was a failure, for nothing written can encompass nothing. My friends, of which I had many, bade me to give up my idea, to find a new muse, a new inspiration. I tried, how I tried, but I could simply write nothing on any other subject. I locked myself in my room and tried again and again in my futile efforts to understand nothing. My temperament, battered by my many failures, grew steadily fouler. I tried drugs of dubious origin and make, each of which failed to fulfill my bid for nothing. I attempted several rituals aimed to separate myself from my body, but still, nothing worked. Each of my friends, one by one, chose to have no further associations with me. Soon, my only regular correspondent was my editor, who was quite concerned with my mental state.

One night, perhaps a week after losing touch with my final true friend, it came to me in a dream. Not nothing, of course, for even dreams are something. Instead, I was granted the most brilliant of ideas. I awoke knowing how to immerse myself in nothing. That morning I arranged meeting with my editor. When I shared with him my brilliant plan, I could sense his skepticism grow as I continued but, in the end, he decided to humor me by providing his support. This is a measure not of his confidence in me, as he made quite clear, but a measure of the friendship that we shared.

Although I will not repeat the process I took on paper, and I hope that my editor shall keep to himself as well, I can share the basics of what transpired. My goal was simple in design and yet so very difficult in execution. The goal, in short, was to bridge a gap, a gap that should never be crossed. I would start in nothing immaterial, in the middle of nowhere and with nothing of note within sight. I would end in nothing material, in the midst of oblivion and glaring at empty voids. The catalyst would be a singular drug, obtained through means I will never utter. Let it suffice to say that I had no doubt of its efficacy

The trickiest aspect of my plan was how to find a proper site without alerting myself to my location. As to the methods that I utilized, even I am somewhat vague on the details, for my senses were almost constantly subdued or denied to me altogether. Further, I took another drug, one that had failed to deliver me to oblivion but that proved to dull the senses and memory. As of my travel, I felt enough to know that I flew, although I was forced into a deep sleep, so I would not suspect where we traveled. Upon our landing, I was transported into some rental car, driven by my Editor. Although a blindfold prevented me from seeing my path, I knew the destination. Somewhere, anywhere, where nothing was visible for as far as the eye can see. In short, nowhere.

When I was awoken, we had halted. I unveiled my eyes and looked out the window to see where we had arrived. I could not recognize nothing, and I nearly wept for joy. The field was completely barren, containing neither the life of fields nor the dark brown of filth, but instead the perfect oasis of dust, with not so much as a single mountain on the horizon. My editor’s presence in the car went virtually unnoticed, for he did not speak and left as soon as I had left with the select few possessions I had packed.

As I sat down on the dust, I opened up my pack, which carried within it a few days worth of vittles, my journal, several pens, and the drug around which the entire plan revolved. I ate a small lunch of cheese upon crackers to celebrate my small victory in reaching my point of departure. In an unknown area of an unknown destination with nothing in sight, surely I had wandered close enough to oblivion for inspiration to come. As I watched the blue rental car fade out of view, I realized that the cab had not even been using a road, completing a perfect image of nowhere immaterial.

After my small, celebratory lunch, I drew out the small bottle that held within my precious elixir. I poured the slimy and crackling substance down my throat, forcing it down despite the objections of my body. I quickly withdrew my journal and pen and waited for inspiration’s grace. Instead, nothing came to me. I waited for what seemed like hours, but still nothing came. My eyes kept wandering over to the tire tracks left by the cab. Surely, the nothing would be endless in coming if my mind were to have such distractions. I got up and used my feet to rub away all traces of the tire tracks as far as I could see from my bag. When the job was done to satisfaction, I returned to the journal. The nothing continued to echo, both within and without me. The bag had become the new source of irritation.

I moved the bag behind me so I could not see it. This was such an easy fix, compared to the last, that I must be approaching oblivion, the space where nothing presides. But no, the ground itself became a new anathema, combining with the horizon to torture me so heartlessly. My bag, which I also now hated, became my pillow, for looking up at the sky, neither it nor the ground could stand between me and oblivion. The sky itself was a void, so it would not vex me so plainly. Impossible! Directly overhead, oppressing me with its image, was the sun. I shut my eyes in desperation, hoping to escape everything.

How could it still be noon? I had arrived the previous day at sunset. Have I been driving all of this time? Time! No, time was an object. The immaterial nothing I needed to travel from refused to be gazed by mortal eyes; just as much as the material nothing I yearned for had eluded me. Something snapped in my head, inflating my obsession into full-blown mania. I would not be denied. I didn’t care how many rules of nature, of man, or of god that I’d have to break. I had to force myself away from everything without exception, but how could I?

Suddenly, the problem no longer seemed to vex me, and my other worries had vanished as well. At the moment, I felt myself floating, and I found in a rare moment of lucidity that nothing truly mattered. Although I did not open my eyes, I suddenly became aware of my surroundings. I had done it. I had crossed the gap. I found myself truly nowhere, within oblivion, and amongst material nothing. I gazed about my surroundings furtively, scared that larger motions would shatter my gate to the void, either trapping me within or locking me without. However, as one could truly expect of nothing, no movement I made could truly change my perspective. The nothing, which I perceived as pure blackness, surrounded me, and now I only needed wait for inspiration.

Something soon came to my attention, as anything is likely to do when the alternative is gazing at nothing. I saw a dimension, or else a color, floating somewhere within the void. How could that be possible, while I was floating in oblivion itself, no less? But no, that single mote of existence grew larger and larger, invading my consciousness.

The shape and description of the creature I saw, for it was surely some creature, is one that almost denied the words of man. Its dimensions and angles, its very geometry seemed impossible and terribly, terribly wrong. Most of its parts and ghastly limbs possess no parallel in words the world over. Loops of flesh… amorphous limbs that tear at the body…colors beyond my comprehension. Should I have to describe it, or at least the portion that allowed description, I would have to compare it to a cross between a spider and a crab, possessing nigh countless legs spurting at almost every angle and a number of hideous pincers, the exact number of which changed with each second, at one point outnumbering the spider legs and at another possessing not at all. The skin of this creature, rather than flesh or scales, were composed completely of eyes. The eyes were terrible, for not only did they see, but they knew. You could see the dark intellect and age of this antediluvian creature by seeing but one eye, while I was forced to see thousands. The worst aspect of this creature, despite its many other faults, was its mouth. Its mouth did not seem to rise up from its body but it was also not to be found on the body itself, and yet it remained plainly visible. The mouth lacked any sort of definition, lacking even an up and a down (for I have already told you that the geometry of this creature was terribly wrong). I cannot honestly guess to its dimensions, for along each axis, the size differed by a terrible degree.

The effect of this creature upon nothing, and upon me, were equally profound. As this creature approached, nothing began to move. Soon, nothing was writhing, seething, and boiling to a point far beyond where nothing should. My impression of the creature was in equal parts confusion, horror, and fascination. The presence of anything within oblivion, let alone this warped creature, confused me, for its very presence violated nothing. The form of the creature gripped me in horror that made me want to flee, but my fascination kept me in check. Every time that I wrote a book, I imagined myself visited by some small muse. Perhaps this creature, this impossibility of life, could serve as one such muse. As I gazed into its eyes, however, I realized that it was not to be, for to use any knowledge gleaned from its alien mind would make me an abomination.

The creature stopped, how far away, I will never know, for all dimensions of nothing were in flux. It tested the nothing before it as if checking for a cliff in the dark. The creature screamed in pain (or so I imagine), utilizing the loudest silence I had ever heard. The creature had found some barrier, some barrier that it was not meant to pass.

It pressed its body up against the unseen wall and pushed with what must have been Herculean strength (or its equivalent in oblivion). A small polyp of this creature seemed to seep through, displaying some horrid amorphous nature. As it pushed forward, more passed through an invisible crack in the barrier, and then the pushing stopped. The polyp broke off from the larger creature a spore may leave their plant, and the rest quickly dissolved of form, rejoining with nothing in moments. The rest, despite dimensions that should have been lessened, possessed all characteristics of its larger selves, and still seemed larger than me on many dimensions.

The creature moved mere inches, or perhaps feet, away. Then, it began to talk, but it was one of the most horrifying things I had ever heard. I expected the being to say nothing, to remain completely silent. Instead, the voices and sounds that it made rang loudly and clearly, washing over me like a tide of dread. Somehow, the sounds had traveled upon a medium of nothing just to reach me. I thank god that I could not understand the words of this horrid being, for my story might’ve ended there if I had. Even though the words meant nothing to me, however, I quickly grew to dislike, to hate, and to fear the voice even more than the creature delivering them. I tried to cover my ears so that I would no longer be forced to listen to this terrible cacophony, but I no longer possessed my arms or hands. I tried to run away from this creature, but I no longer possessed my legs or feet. I tried to close my eyes to escape, but even my eyes were gone, and yet I was forced to perceive this beast. In oblivion, it was me that was nothing.

The creature stopped its horrid speech and slowly extended one claw forwards. It scraped up against my arm. Upon feeling that claw, that horrid soul-rending appendage, I screamed. It was not my body that screamed, for I had no body to scream with. It was my essence, my very soul that screamed out in agony. A scream so silent that it existed only within my mind.

I awoke with a terrible fright, just where I had fallen asleep. Upon my lap was my journal and within my left hand rested my pen. I looked down to the journal, and I was terrified. There, written in an unfamiliar hand, were words that I could barely hope to comprehend. To further my escalating anxiety, the writing had an unreal quality about it, as if kept in view by some weak and fragile illusion. I looked through the pages, but all but the final few were occupied by these phantasmal inscriptions. Using my pen, I tried to cross out these writings, to somehow nullify them. Each mark my pen made, if it indeed made any at all, faded behind the alien writing, concealed by its glamour. I closed the book with all of my force, and gasped as if for air. In that moment, for the first time in years, I prayed. I truly prayed for whatever power that watched over me to forgive my intrusion of the void.

I got up and tried walking around the area, desperate to find the remaining tire tracks so that I could find my way back to some civilization. I found nothing. It was as if they were never there, or as if a strong breeze had wiped them away to spite me. To spite my invasion of the void. I gathered my things and began to walk.

Perhaps my invasion of the void had some, strange benefit upon my body, for I no longer felt the harshness of the elements and my hunger and thirst slowed to a crawl. Unfortunately, time seemed much longer now, after journeying to a place where it had no meaning.

I kept looking to the distance. Every now and again, I would believe myself to see a structure upon the horizon, but it would always fade from view as I approached. Despite my lack of hunger and thirst, I did, at length, finish off my vittles. When I arrived at this milestone, I knew exactly what to do.

I tore forth the few untainted papers from my journal and withdrew my pen. I dug a hole, large and deep, into the ground with my bear hands. Into the hole I threw my bag, in which was that dreaded codex. and cut out the few remaining blank pages of my journal. I knew I would soon die and wanted no one to find that befouled journal. If someone found me, they would not recognize me. As one who has found nothing, who heard nothing, who touched nothing, and who accomplished nothing, it is only appropriate that I have become a nobody.

I walked on further for about a day before I collapsed from thirst. Now, I possess only the strength to write my account upon the few blank pieces of paper I scavenged, and perhaps to pin them under me when I finish, so they do not blow away in another breeze. Now, I would like to think of myself as a bit wiser, given the few hours that I have laid prone here, left only with my thoughts. I now know why the strange creature had pierced the barrier that protected me. In my obsession to find and write of nothing, I had turned to full animism without conscious consent. I had forced myself to take in the very soul of nothing. I had called to the void in our world, but only in oblivion, where I am naught, could nothing answer. Take my warning, for if you search for nothing, you will find nothing, and oblivion may be the last thing you ever find. I worry not about the journal anymore, for those who read it will glean nothing, and those who search for it will find nothing. That is perhaps for the best, for only now do I realize the true meaning of the creature’s words and the phantom inscriptions, a testament to oblivion’s affect on me, for the mortal mind should never contemplate their meaning.

They, of course, mean absolutely nothing.