Something From Nothing

I wasn't anything. I was nothing. I started out with nothing, and anything that accrued was summarily cancelled by an equal and opposite removal of everything, making me a zero. Yet, if I walked three steps forward, I moved only 2.999 steps backward.

So, not quite a complete nothing.

Then I became something. Nothing important, but something. Anything from nothing is something, and something from anything is everything. Then I became something important.

I looked down upon the nothings, wasting their nothing lives in their nothingness, having little nothings they could call their own — all for nothing and good for nothing.

I said something to the nothings, going something like this:

You are nothing. I am everything. You will never amount to anything.

Nothing you do will ever matter. No one cares about you. I am much too busy doing something to be bothered by nothing, which is you. Whatever way you're going, I'm going the other way. Away from nothing. Toward something.

And nothing-at-all rose up, amounting to a lot of nothing. To me, anyway. And before I knew it, from the intangible there emerged some faint growth of the tangible. It began to tower over me. It demanded my attention.

I ignored it.

It was nothing. Nothing at all. You can't get something for nothing; you can't get something from nothing.

Its cries were nothing. It's tears, nothing. The teeth it gnashed made no sound. Then the nothing began to substantiate, to become substantive. To augment. To become something substantial.

I laughed. I swiped at the things to strike them down. They pushed back.

Something propped up by nothing cannot stand. I collapsed like a house of cards. I halved and became a dollop. Halved again and became a scintilla. Halved again — a modicum. Halved once more into a smidgen. From smidgen, halved repeatedly into an iota, a soupçon, a tidbit, and finally into a smithereen. From there...

I was nothing again. All the way back.

Yet, even being nothing — nothing at all — I still could look back and see that at some time, just once, I was really something.

And that, my friends, isn't just something — it's everything.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: Word count (excluding notes): 366

Submitted for Monday, March 18, 2024

2024: A Story-a-Day for the whole year. This one is #78.

Story background: We are all in a constant confusion trying to reconcile what we think of ourselves vs what others think of us. When all the frets and comparing of notes are completed, one must be happy with him- or herself. To hell with the rest of 'em.

My own venture into this story began as a writer's block. I refused to give up. "Write something! Anything!" was the mandate that spurred me on. So, I began with nothing and, hopefully, ended up with something.