Lack

It was not dark. If you envision shadow, the vast and endless black of the space between stars where some things can exist, in stasis, you miss the point. If you see utter, swallowing, dismal blackness that seeks to destroy, you miss the point.

The place was lack.

We are naturally predisposed to feel odd around lack. Not because of any shared experience, merely because of the lack of experience. If you are there, there is a being there. Vacuum should be true lack, yet we assign it a value in our heads. Even if we could only explain that value on that level between heart and head that gives the best and worst of poetry, or the true meaning of "space".

We cannot experience it in reality. We are. Nothing including us can ever have lack. Even removing ourselves from the equation, nothing can include a live us for long.

Nothing is terrifying.

We get hints of it. Loneliness. Darkness. Silence. Your heartbeat speeds. Your breathing grows heavy. Nothing there, but we're so used to it, there must be something, we can't handle there being nothing, but where, where, where...

The unthinkable. Nothing is there.

Alone in the dark.

What is so interesting is how easily we accept when this lack isn't our focus. It's our default, in the back of our heads. Think about a memory, or a vision, or a thought. Walk through memory, creating nothing new. Start at the center, your focus. Take one step out. Two. Three. Still within consciousness' soft glow. Eight. Ten. Twelve. Twenty-seven. Stepped past the light, past the black, to the default, to the lack.

And yet you've carried your focus with you. Named this realm. Lack. If you feel nothing, that still lacked. If not, if the sweet tang of blood, fear, sweat, the sweet touch of wonder, curiosity, love, the shimmers of novelty follow you, you move further from the realm of lack.

Here you stand. Not one foot in each world. Both feet along the blurred line. Go back two minutes, this realm was lack. Go forward some moments, the realm has no difference from any other reverie. Slowly, slipping, the focus blurs the lack to the have.

Welcome back.

You're home by now. Even if you stay. Especially if you stay. Home is where the heart is. This place glows now only with you. You made this space. The thoughts are yours.