Something about nothing!

Sometimes, nothing is supposed to mean anything. Sometimes, you do stuff just for the sake of doing stuff. Sometimes, it all falls into place.

I wrote a story today, a short one, after what can safely be considered an eternity. Actually, I began yesterday, and finished today. It was weird for when I began I had nothing, but this one, single line:

This is of a time when the trees had stopped talking

I began with this, just this. And a vague, distant idea about what the end might be. I knew it wasn’t going to end that way. I was in the bathroom, when I got that idea, getting ready for work, and so couldn’t start yammering at the keys right away. That was scary, for I am famous for dropping things midway and never visiting them again.

I think I have talked about this before. This whole approach to writing stuff. Now I think I’ll try and explain the process.

I can think of two analogies. Both involve walking, for I don’t think anything else describes what writing is. For just as walking is nothing but controlled falling, writing too is nothing but that. Stumbling. Feeling. Falling. And finding.

The analogies then.

Imagine a thick fog, a fog so thick, that you can see your hands, yes, but only when you hold them up. Imagine walking through that fog, walking, stopping, looking, feeling for something, anything, finding nothing and still continuing; for there was nothing else that could be done.

The second analogy is something similar, actually exactly the same, but instead of walking in the fog, you are walking in a cloudy, moonless, starless night, and it is raining! You know something else? You know, in your heart, that you are very likely going to die of Pneumonia. But still you walk, for there’s nothing else that can be done.

And that was I did. I walked. I walked to that tree, I sat under it, and I let the tree tell me the story, for it encompassed all reason, time, and space. And sense, as I realized at the end.

Bit it did not matter. Not really, because even though I had started with the aim of putting it out somewhere, it ended up being something else, something too personal. And even though I have shared it with a few people, people I trust; I am at peace with it, because I am confident they won’t get it.

Heck! Even I don’t get it!