Weightless

I walked through the sporting goods store, filled now mostly with clothes rather than sporting goods, and made my way to the antiquated rack, to search for weights, against which my growing son could test his muscles.

I found the rack long since emptied, except for five-pound weights too light to do anyone any good, and I thought to myself: The substance has gone. We no longer live in the world, but in emptiness, a vacuum far away from any planet that could exert a pull of any meaningful size.

We hold nothing in our hands now, a nothingness that takes on the form of an immense monster that roams the wilderness, howling for a mate, against intruders, to create an echo, none of which will ever materialize.