Nothing
A story about a mouse.
I lay in bed, eyes closed, and listened to the mouse. Somewhere, in the walls of the house, I heard it squeaking. At least, I assumed it was a mouse. What else makes bright, intermittent noises like Morse code in the depths of night?
My phone charger.
I got up and stumbled over to where it was plugged in. In the dark, I bent down and put my ear to the outlet, jiggling the cord the way one does when one knows absolute squat about electronic devices, and I waited for the sound it sometimes emits, reminiscent of a distressed rodent.
Nothing.
I stood up, banged my shin on the bedframe, and scurried back under the covers. Will, asleep, refused to answer my question. So I elbowed him.
“Do you hear that? That little [I made the noise]? I think it’s a mouse.”
“Whyyy are you awake?”
“I’m always awake.”
“You should really try to get some sleep.”
“I know, but dude—a mouse.” Then I added, “In the house!”
"It's probably nothing," Will said, rolling over and falling back asleep.
The mouse chattered. And chattered. And chattered. Something about a girl I used to know—or be? I dunno, I couldn’t make out the words.
I imagined telling my parents about the mouse and them advising me to set traps. But that is not something I am capable of doing…
Also, we have cats. Three (3). Highly territorial. Trained in mortal combat.
One time [trigger warning: GROSS], some poor unsuspecting creature crawled up through the basement floor drain, only to meet its gory end.
Imagine… You crawl thirty-something feet through a pipe just big enough to fit your scraggly body, reach the end, use your last vestiges of strength to push your way to freedom, and then are greeted by six gleaming eyes ready to devour you on the spot—leaving behind your entrails for two clueless humans to find and be horrified enough by to call the vet and say, we think one of our cats has parasites?! and they being a chill vet, say, ok, bring it in, and then the humans scoop your stringy remains into a Ziploc bag and take them to the professionals to look at and say, definitively, not parasites: guts, and then you get disposed of in a sterile windowless lab. Imagine.
Fuck, said the mouse. Not gonna happen to me!
Nor me, I said. Though I admit I could envision a scenario in which I struggle for so long, believing I’m almost at the end, almost free [of suffering], and then I get there, and nothing is as it seems.
.. / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -... . / ..-. .-. . .
Wind swept through the wildflowers along the side of the house, bashing their crisp heads against the windowpane, making it rattle. I thought about what I might attempt to write, to share with the World, and decided:
Nothing.
I would write about nothing.
O, Nothing. How I adore thee!
Doing nothing. Saying nothing. Basking in the warm dark of nothing; nothing the matter, no qualms or complaints.
No thing to distract or deter me, or ruminate on.
Pure, unabashed relife. I mean, relief. But also—relife! A return to the static swirl. Possibility. Seedhood.
Something comes from nothing.1
I often lie awake in bed and think of nothing. Which isn’t nothing, of course, but if I lie still enough, and bring enough awareness to what I’m doing, or not doing, I can almost believe that it’s possible. That anything is possible, if given enough time, depth, and sufficient darkness. And that Life, this improbable burgeoning, is more wondrous than anything I could dream.
Other times, nothing is an endless void—a growing glow on the horizon that threatens to consume me. I feel it flood the space between myself and my Self; myself and others; myself and the World.
This nothingness can become so intense, so charged, so paralyzing, that I find it hard to think or even breathe. Like walking through dense fog, I see shapes on the horizon that aren’t there, hear voices that seem like they want to help me but lead me further astray.
I feel nothing. Want nothing. Love nothing. Am loved by nothing.
In this way, nothing becomes of me. I struggle to move, to choose, to act.
Even a smile is too much to ask.
“SMILE.”
He says it sweetly, this young man I’m supporting for only one day. Alas, it’s a cover shift; I may not see him again—and so far, as is often the case, I have not.2
He wanted to go to the library. I drove him there, helped him look at kids’ books, this bright-faced twenty-something, who, though unable to engage in conversation, uses simple words sparingly.
“SMILE,” he repeats, and for his sake, I try. I try to smile.
To my amazement, whatever manifests on my face is more than the nothing smile I have been capable of offering for I-have-lost-track-of-the-days.
“SMILE.”
He turns away from me and toward his reflection in the darkened window of an unoccupied study room. The person he sees smiles back, making him smile even bigger.
“SMILE,” he tells him, and the young man in the window smiles back, even bigger.
“SMIIILE.”
The biggest smile yet.
It’s not nothing. No way. How could it be?
And yet, the divide it miraculously repairs later dissipates…
Will knows the drill. What to say, what not to say. He brings me two jars. One, in favor of Life. The other, its opposite. He instructs me to write notes to fold and put in each, and when I can’t summon the strength, he does so for me. His kindness, right there, is worthy of jotting down and tucking in the Trader Joe’s pepita salsa jar. (“Pairs well with just about anything, from tacos to grain bowls!”)
I’m a visual learner, which is the point: I can see the scraps of paper add up, more in one jar than the other. Does it instantly assuage me, unfurl me from the tight ball I’m wound up in? No. Not by a long shot. But it redirects the pain. Later transmutes it into gratitude—a word I bristle at, and yet, my god, it’s the most helpful thing.
Within a few days, it’s as though nothing has happened. (And nothing has.) I forget that anything was ever amiss in my brain. Nothing bothers me. Nothing chafes against the windowpane of my mind or heart.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I feel weightless, nothing holding me back. Still, the nothingness is less oppressive than it was before. Softer. Forgiving.
The nothingness I see stretched before me no longer fills me with existential dread, but some version of hope, or rather, hope’s queer cousin: curiosity. I don’t know what will happen—to the World or me—but the only way to find out is to keep going. Keep waking up, trying, learning, going about my beautiful, terrifying, glorious days because more than anything, I’m curious to know how it all shakes out. It might be awful, it might be wonderful. Either way, if I want to know what happens, I need to stick around and see.
What’s behind the door? Around the corner? Inside the box? How does the book/movie/TV show end? How bad is it really going to get? How good? What’s the character (me) going to do next? What do I want to see her do? Nothing? Something she hasn’t thought of or dreamed of yet? Wouldn’t it be cool if [fill in the blank]?
She’ll never know unless she waits. She’ll never know how it goes, or what it means, unless she stays.
God, let’s hope I don’t have to push up a floor grate and find myself face-to-face with three bloodthirsty goons!
Same, said the mouse.
We transmit messages back and forth, feeble signals through the night. When the chattering stops, I lie still and listen to the silence. It sounds like nothing, by which I mean full and rich and alive.
I don’t rush to leave it; I take my time.
The world, in all its beauty and madness, waits for me. ✶
In writing this piece, a story returned to me, one I wrote a few years ago. The narrative in its entirety really only makes sense to me, which is fine. But one part, a mouse’s monologue, I will share here now.
THE MOUSE (ON THE FLOOR OF THE CINEMA IN MY HEART) [Excerpt]
I was born in a wall in winter. For a long time, I didn’t know I was inside a wall. The wall was very soft and warm, but narrow. I could only climb up or down. And it was dark, like constant night. Sometimes light would get in, thin streaks here and there. It took me a while, but once I really saw it, I became obsessed with the light and began to chase it. I was told that this was pointless. Light has no business being in a wall; why pretend otherwise? I was instructed to ignore the light. Except that the more I tried to ignore it, the brighter it grew in the corner of my eye.
What really plagued me was: where did the light come from? What made it so bright? For what reason was it there? Why did it only come sometimes and not always? And most curious, where did the light go when it went?
I needed to know more about the light. It ate at me, so I ate at it—literally! I began to chew at the spots in the wall where the light shone in. I had been told this was impossible and to never attempt it. But in fact, it was the opposite of impossible. Once you opened up the light, even more light came through. Exciting!
I kept chewing. Tiny holes at first. Then bigger ones. Holes big enough to fit whole mice.
I went through. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but as I was doing it, I realized I was: going through. Like becoming aware that you are dreaming, only I wasn’t dreaming—I was waking up.
On the other side, I didn’t recognize anything, but somehow, everything felt familiar, like a place I already knew. I was in a room, also dark, but not in the way the wall was dark. Dark like a solar eclipse is dark, halfway dark, and silvery.
Most of the silveryness came from a box in the back, just shot right out of it, like webbing from a spider, and hit another box, flashing with colors.
So this is where the light comes from. It’s here, in this dark in-between place.
And so I began to exist in the room full of colors and light. I explored every surface and grew accustomed to all the unique textures and sounds. I never knew a world so full of wonders! Sticky-sweet things on the floor for me to nibble. Tall, plush, billowy things (pleasurable to nest in and to climb). Red squarish things with short, prickly hairs that opened when you jumped on them, then snapped shut and sent you flying! The whispers of approaching feet.
A word about feet: they belong to socks, and shoes, and legs. In my world, I sit among them, crawl over them, and attempt to rest on them, which often results in being shooed away, though occasionally not.
Feet are young, feet are old. They go bare. They emit fascinating odors. Some are ghostly; others are solid as pain.
Feet are usually attached to bodies larger than I with faces, or impressions of faces, similar to the ones on the colored box. They come in pairs or sets. They come alone. Some I have grown to anticipate, and they are as familiar to me as the sweetness their upper bodies drop on the floor—hence, I’m fond of them.
I do not know where the feet come from, where they go, or where they sleep. I only know their tappy-tapping, their unsure shuffling, their sometimes stillness.
Even now, there is much I don’t know, but especially in the beginning. Looking back, I knew hardly anything then. Yet it didn’t matter what I knew or how much, only that I was there, doing my best with whatever little I had.
And it was so little. It was the perfect amount for me. 🐁
Seeing them in May. Can’t wait!
I work as a direct support professional, assisting adults with disabilities.
Beautiful story, as always, Al! I am glad you decided to share it with us. I hope you and the mouse are well!
really beautiful writing <3