The Void

                Jerry stepped into the empty void. Although as it was an empty void, he wasn’t exactly sure that he had stepped into it. He only knew that where he was before wasn’t where he was now. The now he was in was empty and more void-like than the clearly crowded place he’d been. So, he had to guess that he was now in the void. His sneakers squeaked as he walked forward across the floor of the void, which struck Jerry as odd that a void would have such a nicely polished white marble floor.  He wondered if there was a custodial staff that came into the void with a floor buffer and buffed the floors to such a degree that they appeared to not exist.

                His squeaking sneakers echoed through the void as he walked forward. If a void could have any direction that is. Jerry only assumed he was moving forward, but without any sign posts or road markers of any kind he couldn’t be sure if he was just marching in place or actually moving. He stopped walking and listened as the echoes of his squeaks drifted all through the void until they dissipated.  “An endless void that appears to have no end”, thought Jerry.  He remembered the stories he read as a kid about those cruel overlords of medieval myth that would hurl brave knights into bottomless pits. Even then he had his doubts about a truly bottomless pit. He couldn’t help but wonder about the construction of a bottomless pit. Did workers go into a bottomless pit never to return. They would kiss the wife and kids good-bye and go down there with their hard hats or candles on their heads, and just disappear. “Would the general contractor go down there or would he stay behind with the evil overlord so the invoice could get paid? How would they know when they were done with the bottomless pit,” wondered Jerry.

He shook his head and began his squeaking trek once more within the void.

                The void was bright but it didn’t appear to have any external light source to Jerry. He couldn’t figure out how it was so magnificently bright in the void. He remembered reading about how the human eye perceived light and color and how it’s interpreted by the brain. He thought it could be dark as pitch in the void, but his brain was just interpreting it as bright. He had way too many questions about the void. He never actually thought he’d get this far into the void since up until the moment he stepped into it; it hadn’t existed. Jerry wished his sneakers weren’t so loud. He wondered if the squeaking rubber sound bouncing through the void was ruining the actual void experience. He thought about how the sound might be causing the void to have more structure since it may be reflecting the sound and therefore giving it shape.

                Jerry stopped walking again and looked down at his sneakers as the Doppler echoes of his noisy footfalls faded. He bent over and un-tied his shoe laces. He stretched his sock feet and toes out as he removed the tight-fitting sneakers. The white marble floor was cold underfoot. It wasn’t cold enough to make Jerry shiver or react harshly. He put his sock foot onto the white marble and the sneaker vanished behind him. The void then consumed his other sneaker as he stepped out of it. They vanished without a squeak.

                Jerry started with what he perceived to be walking forward again. Each socked foot stepping silently onto the white void floor. The squeak was gone forever; replaced with a hushed sock-footed shuffle. Jerry was pleased to remove the annoying squeak from the void. It made the void seem far more void-like than it was before. He never imagined he’d be complaining about the noisiness of a void or feel happy now that the void was quieter.

                The white marble never varied in its slope, pitch, texture or smoothness. It kept expanding in front of Jerry as he walked/sock-footed shuffled. He remembered when he was a kid in his grandparent’s house and they had a lot of highly polished wood floors throughout the home. His grandmother was something of a dirt and dust eradicator. She spent the majority of her later years seemingly washing, moping, dusting and then all over again. In some constant struggle against the micro universe of dirt and dust in which she eventually lost, herself turning into the very substance she spent so much time sweeping and mopping away. The floors in the home were ice rink smooth though. Jerry could get a running start in his sock feet and practically slide from one end of the house to the other on the polished wooden floors.

                He felt like he could do that now on the void floor. He wondered if he did get a running start how far he could slide. Physics always slowed him down at his grandparent’s home. He didn’t know if those same rules applied to the void. He grew concerned as the idea of sliding endlessly through all time in his sock feet might end up being more of an embarrassment than a joy. He worried that he might see someone else in the void and he’d be unable to stop sliding in his sock feet to say hi. Jerry worried he’d just zoom on by; never knowing whom the other void dweller was.

                Jerry decided he wouldn’t do a full running start slide, but just a sort of one-foot slide so he could keep some control and stop if he had to. It would be like riding a skateboard but never bringing your left foot up onto the skateboard and just cruise along. He wanted some level of control in the void. Plus he could stop if he wanted to say hi to whomever or whatever he may come across in the void. If there was anything to come across.

                The void kept going on in all directions, as Jerry thought it probably should. It being a void it had to be both infinite and incredibly small while being expansive and all consuming all at the same time. He’d bet the other guys at the bar he could get into the void. He said that if he could, he would, and he did. Jerry wondered how he would collect on the bet now that he was in void. He wondered if since he’d conjured the void, if he could unconjured it. If he did that would it cease to exist, meaning he’d then lose the bet because he’d unconjured it out of existence? He had to prove to the other bar guys that the void did exist in order to win. Jerry wondered if his sneakers would come back into existence or if they were now lost the void.

                Jerry kept sliding on his right foot. Pushing along with his left. Passing nothing. No passing of time. Just sliding in a hush. No echoes bouncing through the emptiness. Jerry couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat in his ears, of hear himself breathing heavy. He didn’t feel tired. He didn’t feel like he was working too hard to slide himself along the white marble floor. He wasn’t sweating.

Jerry wondered about his madness. Had he gone to far. Was he in the bottomless pit, forever digging down? Jerry stopped sliding and another silence came over the void. He peered into the perception of what was ahead. He squinted his eyes to try and see if there was anything to see.

More endless white marble floors.  Jerry realized he’d never looked behind himself. Not even once the whole time he’d been in the void. He felt scared for the first time. He felt like something was behind him. A terror lurking at the rear. Was something else behind him in the void and he’d missed it. He was too worried about nothingness to be concerned with everything behind him. If there was anything behind him at all.

                Jerry shut his eyes and started to turn his head over his shoulder. He suddenly felt sweat on his forehead and a weakness in his legs. He was breathing heavy now. He was thirsty. So thirsty. He got his head positioned over his left shoulder. He was shaking.

                He opened his eyes.