Nothing happened
Obliviated on January 9, 2022.
Nothing happened this past week. I did nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing even happened to me.
For seven days straight my life stood still. For seven days straight the Earth stood still. The Sun didn’t rise and the Sun didn’t set. The Moon didn’t rise, and the Moon didn’t come crashing down to Earth and wipe out human civilization in a fiery apocalypse. Nothing happened this past week.
I don’t remember waking up this past week, not once. I don’t remember going to sleep this past week, not once. I didn’t dream, I didn’t nosh, I didn’t plod about my palatial abode looking for gnomes hiding in my wainscoting, and I didn’t murp. Nor did I herp or derp. I don’t even remember sitting atop my porcelain throne deep in impactful concentration, nor standing afront of it a-whizgiggling. I didn’t go in my kitchen, I didn’t open my refrigerator—let alone my defrigerator—and I didn’t even rest my voluminous buttocks in my Hopeless Slack-Ass® recliner. I’m still not even sure if I’m awake or asleep, or alive or dead, or a mannequin standing hollow and plasticky in the Secondhand-Me-Down storefront window on Stubblebine Street.
Nothing happened this past week. Nothing happened the whole seven days, the whole 168 hours, the whole 10,080 minutes, or most of the 604,800 seconds. (I do think something happened on the 26,237th second on Saturday, but it was so brief and fleeting that it barely counts. I also couldn’t see what it was because I was busy lamenting so hard that nothing was happening this whole week.)
Every hour, it should have gotten later, but it didn’t. Because when the hours can’t pass, it can’t get any later than it already is. I took solace in this—I would never be late anywhere I needed to be!—but since nothing was happening, the only place I had to be was lolling listlessly in my palatial abode, tongue hanging out like a cow, and mooing softly.
Nothing happened this past week. I implored the baleful Owl Gods to make something happen—anything, even if it was catastrophic and disastrous, like so, so many things are in my Pnårpy life—but they refused to answer my prayers. And since nothing happened, I didn’t actually implore any Owl Gods to do anything at all.
Nothing happened this past week. I implored the gnomes to emerge from my wainscoting and wheedle and needle me into a state of gibbering cataplexy, but they refused to appear. I tried to set my wainscoting on fire—a desperate attempt to tease some bearded and behatted gnomes out of it!—but it wouldn’t even ignite. Apparently nothing could happen this week, not even arson.
So, I went back to doing nothing. Nothing continued to happen. Nothing continued to happen to me. Not even an errant piano would fall on my head no matter how many times I went walking down the sidewalk under open windows. So, I went back to doing nothing—firmly immersed in the week-long nothingness which surrounded me like… well, nothing.
I don’t remember waking up this past week, not once. I don’t remember going to sleep this past week, not once. I didn’t dream, I didn’t nosh, I didn’t plod about my palatial abode looking for goats hiding in my aviary, and I didn’t cranch. So little—so much nothing—happened this week that I didn’t even realize I was nearly repeating myself there. I was nearly repeating myself there.
I was nearly repeating myself there, I was.
There were no cars sputtering down Bouillabaisse Boulevard this week, not one—because nothing happened. There were no passers-by passing by on the sidewalk—because nothing happened. The geese were nowhere to be seen (nor heard) honking and hissing—because nothing happened. There were some spuds sputtering down the street this week, but that’s only because potatoes are really time-traveling aliens that can exist outside a fully halted timeline such as the one in which I was living this week. Or baby Langoliers just happen to look an awful lot like cute little potatoes.
Mr. Van Der Woobie’s ghost didn’t haunt me this week, because that would be something. Mr. Van Der Woobie himself didn’t appear either—because he was dead—and if he had come back from the dead, that would sure be something.
But something is not nothing, so something couldn’t be. A thing that would sure be something was even more out of the question.
And so, without further ado (because ado is something), the week wore on. And I wore on, bored and immersed up to my eyebulbs in nothingness—absolute, unadulterated nothingness. Null, nada, zero, zilch, emptiness. Emptiness in time, space, and inside my brainpan. Nothing could free me from the nothing in which I was ensconced. And nothing continued to happen—intense, horrifying, roaring nothing.
Blocks upon blocks of cheese descended from the clouds—cheese of all kinds. I ate each and every one of them, snapping my jaws at them as they fell, sometimes swallowing blocks whole, other times gobbling noisily upon them before gulping them down. The feta seemed to descend with the most grace, I opined—just like the sheep whence such cheese came. The Swiss fell stridently and with confidence; the Monterey Jack tried to overcompensate for its blandness by putting on a ridiculous show as it descended: Spinning, tumbling, even doing little cartwheels in the air. The American cheese cheered raucously and for seemingly little reason. At one point, a block of Stilton got stuck in my craw, but I remained steadfast in my cheese-catching after I dislodged it. I only gave up after sixty pounds of habanero-infused cheddar fell all at once and blinded me with its searing-hot rage.
But that didn’t happen this week—because nothing happened at all this week. My cheese-eating happened nearly ten years ago. This week, no blocks of cheese fell and no blocks of cheese were eaten by this Pnårp. In fact nothing at all was eaten by this Pnårp—nor, unless I miss my guess, any other Pnårp. Nothing happened, nothing continued to happen, and nothing wouldn’t stop happening for the whole empty, vacuous week.
I tried to go back to sleep but then realized that sleeping is something—not nothing—and so I couldn’t.
I tried to wake up but then realized that waking up is something—not nothing—and so I couldn’t.
I murped a little in my pants, but then realized, that’s something too—so I stopped. But stopping is doing something, so I didn’t do that either. I stopped stopping—I continued to murp in my pants. But then I didn’t do that either.
Nothing reigned. Nothing abounded. Absolute, terrifying nothing.
Then the week ended and another began—except, the end of nothing is something too, so that couldn’t happen, either. So it didn’t. The week bore on for eternity.