To Write About Nothing

It was probably a Wednesday. Or maybe a Thursday. Who really knows? The day wasn’t very important to us, unless it was Friday. Otherwise it was just another day in the life of an average 8th grader.

Most of us had taken our seats around the room, while there were still probably another forty seconds before the late-bell rang. The time allotted between periods for students to get themselves from class to class lasted nearly three minutes in total, but always felt like a weird mix of an entire lifetime and no time at all. It often seemed long enough to huddle loudly with your peers in the middle of a hallway, until teachers who monitored the halls came to ‘politely’ nudge everyone to keep moving. At the same time, these grace minutes were never long enough to actually walk the distance between classrooms, as most students had the common misfortune that their next class was located on the complete opposite corner of the school. I found the remedy to this was to disregard the urge to stop with friends altogether and march in a hurried fashion. I would walk hastily through the halls, stepping with a pace superior to most, with my arms tightly clenched around my books in a manner which was both organized but comfortable enough to seem hip. I did this also because, more or less, my circle of friends was too small to ever count on running into familiar faces at the time.

As the second bell echoed and the few missing students shuffled into the room, our teacher straightened her posture from a relaxed crouch and stood firmly in front of the class. I don’t remember her name. Most teachers have faded out of memory, mostly because they haven’t had significant enough of an impact to be worthy of remembering. I do remember that this particular lady’s name started with a ‘B’ and ended in ‘lia’; and I only remember this because the nickname that we all whispered behind her back was something along the lines of Mrs. Bitch-lia. She wasn’t young, and had a slight creak in her spine giving her a hunched complexion. Looking back she probably never did anything harsh enough to earn such a nickname. Maybe because she was older, or perhaps she gave too much homework – who knows. Such things as deciding an unfriendly nickname for a teacher often don’t warrant much thorough thought in the mind of an immature middle-school adolescent.

“I want everyone to get ready for a pop-assignment,” Mrs. B-lia began, “please clear your desks. All you’ll need is a pen or pencil and a single sheet of paper.” The immediate groan of disapproval that filled the air was almost in perfect unison. Begrudgingly, we all shifted our notebooks underneath our chairs as she weaved in and out of the rows of desks, checking that we were all complying with her request.

“Today we will begin class with an essay – a short essay. I am going to time you all; I think ten minutes will do fine. And in that time I want each of you to write as much as you can think.”

A dark brunette-haired girl raised her hand. Brooke was the most popular girl in school, decreed by universal unspoken agreement. She set the standard of beauty within the school walls, and never wanted for attention because of it. However (perhaps unfortunately) this led her to the belief, misguided or not, that she would be able to skate through life relying on nothing but her good looks; which she then used as an excuse to avoid applying herself in most things that resembled the slightest challenge. “Wait, umm, what did you say we were supposed to be writing about again?”

“Well I haven’t told you that yet.”

“Oh! Okay.”

“I’m sorry, but what’s the topic?” someone exclaimed frantically, who was so clearly not paying attention that they might as well have had oblivious written on their forehead. A few of the more inclined kids, who had the individual wherewithal to know better, gave a slight chuckle out loud. The rest of us who didn’t crack a smile at their lack of attention were laughing on the inside.

Before answering, Mrs. B-lia took a half-second pause, long enough to express her disappointment with the quality of questions thus far. She then regained her faith in her students and promptly stepped back to the front of the room.

“Is everyone ready? Does anyone need a spare pencil to borrow? No? Alright. So. I want you all to write about nothing.” She smiled, but it was more of a semi-smile that extended into the wrinkles on her face. She now expected the confusion that followed. She already knew that we would have no idea what she meant. Now, we were the quiet ones. Some giggled to cover their uncertainty; others just looked around hoping someone else had actually understood the assignment and would speak up to clarify.

“So we have to write about nothing,” said Brooke, “for this essay. So, like, what do you mean by nothing”

“It can mean whatever you want it to mean.”

“So nothing? Like, how do we write nothing?”

“I didn’t say write nothing,” our teacher instructed, curling her fingers into pretend quotation marks around the word write. “I want you to write about nothing. It can be anything. Whatever first comes to mind. Surprise me. The only rule is you must be writing. You cannot turn in blank pages.”

One or two hands shyly began to lift into the air, but Mrs. B-lia hushed anyone from speaking. “The idea of this assignment is to just write. Write about nothing. You define the assignment. Be creative. Write what it means to you to write about nothing. Be original. Just write.”

“About nothing?” asked Oblivious-Girl, who was still doubtful of what she was expected to do.

“About nothing,” Ms. B-lia reassured. “Write about nothing.” She said this now with a resolute sense of finality. It became clear that any further questions on the subject would only send the discussion in circles, pointless circles at that. And out of fear of our teacher’s name-sake reputation, we suddenly came to a joint agreement that it was best to just start the assignment as she intended us too, and hopefully figure out the rest later.

At first I just stared into the lines of the blank page in front of me. What to write? I thought to myself. Then I felt an abrupt nervous pinch that spiked the hairs on my arm. It was startling, but exciting at the same time. I suddenly began to enjoy the assignment. It fascinated me. As if it was meant for me, or something to that tune. My inner voice began whispering; Hells yeah, this will be a walk in the park! You’ll write this crazy-nuts story and everyone will love it. C’mon you’re creative! This will be easy. Just use that imagination of yours and shine.

So I got to work.

I ended up writing three, maybe three and half, sentences. I’m not even sure what exactly I wrote. I mostly remember attempting to detail the events of that day up until the current moment, but with a fashionable sense of a heroic story unfolding. To say the least, I didn’t get very far.

Those ten minutes passed as quickly as you’d imagine they would, considering most of us spent the time trying to figure out what the assignment even meant, before they actually managed to jot anything down. Mrs. B-lia called time on her little pet-project, and asked us all to put down our pens or pencils.

“So what did you guys think?” she asked. There was silence in response. Not the kind of silence that echoes when no one has anything to say, but rather when no one is genuinely willing to speak up. Mrs. B-lia looked around hoping someone would add a comment, and when no one did she added, “Does anyone want to share what they’ve written?”

Another split second went by of total silence before one or two hands found their way into the air. A few of us gathered that we were only being graded on the fact that we did anything, not for the exact quality of our puzzled work. At this point it seemed participating in class could only earn us brownie points.

The first two stories that were shared aloud were boring at best. Really the only thing worth noting was that those students had the courage to raise their hands and share their written work in front of a classroom of their peers. Sometimes that on its own is worth praise for the typical American 8th grader. The third story, however, was the charm.

The third story was by a boy named David. David was one of the smart–cool kids. There were different types, or genres if you will, of cool. There were the dumb–cool kids, sometimes meshing with the all-around-asshole–cool kids, who made it clear they were only here because life so far has told them that they had to be. But while they were here they might as well be good at sports, bully other kids for no reason, and for all intents and purposes define what everyone else would know as ‘cool’. There were also the I-genuinely-don’t-care-what-you-think-of-me-cool kids, who were cool for just that – not caring what they did and how people saw it, which eventually gained them respect from everyone too shy or otherwise scared to be just like them. [1]

The smart–cool kids, the kind that David was, were basically kids who had their priorities straight enough that they studied hard and got good grades, but had a decent social sense of what’s what on the block. They were often dorky, but not so much so that it was weird. They were also, plain and simple, good kids. Probably not the most popular bunch in the halls, but they always had a good time, or at least they did amongst themselves. And for that, they were cool.

“I kinda thought I’d go out on a limb with this,” David began. “I’m not sure it’s all that, but it might be interesting:

“To write about nothing. How does one begin to write about nothing? I suppose that question could, in and of itself, mean nothing. And if it means nothing, wouldn’t the only way to begin writing about nothing would be to simply write nothing? But the assignment clearly pointed out that we can’t write nothing at all, so I have to start this nothing somewhere. 

I could begin with a very cliché opening, such as how’s the weather? The weather today isn’t optimal, but not horrible either. It seems to be sunny outside, but not particularly warm. Since we’re here inside it’s tough to be certain. There does appear, however, to be a slight breeze, judging by the sway of that tree directly in front of our classroom window.

Talking about the weather isn’t all that exciting. Or at least it isn’t in my opinion. I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinion; and someone else may believe that the weather and its superhuman feats is nothing less than incredible. And they wouldn’t be wrong. And that is their inherent right. In fact, believing in that simple concept is what this country, and even our way of life, is founded upon. You can love the weather, and I can think it’s stupid. That is absolutely fine. 

However, it seems more often than not, that people don’t think that is fine. By that I mean, there seems to be many people out there who love the weather, and feel it is wrong for anyone else to not love the weather. And vice versa. And while arguing about the relative status of the weather in topical conversation might seem trivial, people will argue over things that are far less important to society. Sometimes things that should be of no significance are often enough to fight and hate and even kill over. On paper, it is a beautiful sentiment, but our right to disagree and still coexist does not seem to appear in our real day-to-day lives. It’s a shame, really. I mean, that’s just my opinion.

That’s another good way to look at nothing – how we all inevitably have a different opinion on what nothing is. You can attempt to define it: the absence of something. The absence of anything, perhaps. But there is probably no conceivable way that everyone would ever agree on what nothing is. And along with that, it would be contradictory to even attempt to write about nothing. If nothing is the absence of anything, then it is impossible to write about nothing. But then again, once I begin to think about it, that is what we are doing. Here, in this assignment and even in life. We are living nothing– actually living it! Who’s to say we don’t live our days in an endless search to find the something meant to fill the void of our nothing.

But I digress. In fact, this whole essay so far is a digression. I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying at this point. But I guess if I were to boil it down, it’s not really so complicated. I guess what I’m trying to say is even if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, if you begin to write about nothing, in the end you’ll actually end up writing about something.”

 

When he finished, David set his paper down and looked back up to visually confirm that he did in fact finish. Everyone exploded in a uniform soft applause. I clapped along with the group, partially out of jealousy, but also because I was, in fact, impressed. I wasn’t just impressed, I had been blown away. It was, by all means, something I wish I had written. No one else volunteered their work to the class. And with good reason.

However, as moving as David’s momentary soliloquy was, once our teacher was satisfied with what she had seen, she asked to collect the papers and began to scribble today’s lesson across the open chalkboard, signaling to all of us that it was time to do the usual pointless note-taking that we did every other day. It was as if she had been expecting someone to really knock the topic out of the park; but now that someone actually did, there was really nothing more to be said about it. By the end of that class, everyone had forgotten David’s essay; and soon enough I’m sure David did too. Because in the end that’s all it amounted to: a very forgettable assignment in an 8th grade class because an 8th grade teacher seemed to have nothing better to do.

But I never forgot about that assignment. After that I figured if you can write something out of nothing, you can write anything.

 

 

[1] Note:

Regarding the I-genuinely-don’t-care-what-you-think-of-me–cool kids: c’mon, let’s be real. To a certain extent everyone cares what others think. Especially when you are so very young, and so easily molded by the social structure that surrounds you. My theory is these kids were exceptionally gifted actors; and were just good at convincing everyone else they didn’t care for their appearances and/or reputation, but were actually only willing to do/say certain things because they had that protection of being known as the I-genuinely-don’t-care-what-you-think-of-me–cool kids. If the world knew they too cared about what you thought of them, their entire ability to be cool would fade… the asshole–cool kids were just jerks.