A Search for Nothing

I am somewhere I did not intend to be. I am lost. The snow is rapidly turning into grass. If I don’t leave soon my footprints will be gone and I will be in the middle of a field, in the middle of a county, in the middle of a state, in the middle of a country, that all make me feel alone and bothered at the same time. In fact, I am lost because I wanted to go somewhere I couldn’t be found. Let the snow melt.

I desired a spot with no sign of man. So I went trudging through the woods. Then the Earth opened. A golden field. Crisp blue skies. And a factory.

I had to escape the factory, the smoke rising from its stack. What do they make there? I would not be surprised if it was a nothing factory. A place that exists to prevent people from believing that nothing is happening. A place that peacefully disrupts the peace. Why is there a factory in no where? To remind us we are somewhere.

I kept moving, searching for perfect nothing. The snow crunched under my feet. Crunch, crunch, crunch. An abandoned combine sank into the soggy ground. Another reminder you can’t escape. Maybe though, that combine had escaped. No longer asked to cut the field it was now retired to. Its metal could rust freely, its tires deflate. It was returning to the earth in the manner humans and animals only can when they die. Is this combine dead or the most alive it had ever been? I wanted that feeling, but I don’t want to die. Not yet. I kept walking.

I slipped in the snow and fell to the ground. Lucky for my wrist my ankle broke my fall. My new limp was a fine present from the nature that I wanted to drown in. I stumbled onward, but after a few steps it became apparent sitting seemed a better calling.

Within a few yards of my makeshift trail I took to a log. I sat and nothing happened. I stared into the woods waiting for a truck to drive by or Sasquatch to offer me a cigarette. Something to remind me of my futile attempt to escape the chaos of breathing.

I did it. I am doing it. I am lost and broken. I can’t see or hear anyone. No buildings, no machines. It’s perfect, I thought.

Perfection is a myth. A second scan. Far above the trees a light post peered my way. The light did not shine, but it caused blinding. Even here in perfect nothing, escape was impossible. A crackle floated across the landscape and punched me in the ear.

“Prisoners, return to your cell.”

I pushed myself up from the downed birch tree and faced where I had come.