The Word Nothing

This is how he wrote:

In the void of his small, nearly barren room, the only sounds were the incessant ticking of an old clock and the occasional shuffle of his chair. A single word each day, selected not for meaning but for its shape against the silence. Today’s word: “Nothing.” It stared back at him from the paper, demanding existence.

He wrote, “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.” The sentences circled back on themselves, each one a loop, a reiteration of the void. His hand moved, not to fill the page, but to acknowledge the emptiness it embraced. Each word a testament to futility, each pause a confrontation with the void.

Tomorrow, another word, another day of writing. The relentless pursuit of words that say nothing, mean nothing, change nothing. Yet he writes, because there is nothing else to do but write.