Void sits. As it is with Void, Void sits as a stone would, all the implications of moss. His arms rest on the arm rest of the arm chair. The arm chair rests at one end of the twenty-foot hallway, facing the other end where rests a television with arms, antennae actually, but arms in the eyes of the head of Void. Filling the space in between the arms of the TV and the arms of the chair where rest the arms of Void rests a carpet runner that runs from the tips of Void's bare big toes to the bony foot of the table where rests the TV which has been running, on MUTE, for three months if a day. If the day Void turned it on was in January, and of this there was no way to be sure, then surely this is March or April, and the months are lined with days, days lined with hours, hours with minutes, and on to seconds, the only units of time of which Void lately has taken notice, if at all. Weeks don't exist for Void; they exist only for the workers and drones\emdash not that Void is a queen or a king\emdash and for the moon that grows and decays according to weeks. But seconds are hammered into Void's haired head, the clock on the wall directly behind him, the clock that hasn't been looked at since it was put there in a month that ends in -y or -ember or -ust, the clock all the traits of which Void has forgotten except for those destined to be associated with analog clockness until the utter downfall of analog clockdom: the circle, the signs for one to twelve, the axis, the big hand, the little hand, and the big little hand that pushes the seconds into Void's ears as ticks\emdash no tocks, just ticks\emdash denoting time and connoting the end of time, yet all of it, at least for Void, oddly utterly timeless.Void sits. As it is with most hallways, the hallway is lined with doors. Four of them, two on each side, one nearer and one further. The nearer door on the left opens and closes the space of a bathroom, where the toilet has been running for twice as long as the TV if a day. If the day it started its ceaseless gurgling was in June, and of this there was no way to be sure, then surely this is November or December, and the months are lined with glances at the bathroom, the bathroom lined with gurglings of the toilet, the toilet with concentric brownish rings, and rings with decaying bacteria, the only element of decay entirely invisible to but not unnoticed by Void. The shower doesn't exist for Void; it exists only for those who want to get wet, and Void never liked the way it hammered into his haired head.
Void glances. As it is with implications, Void is aware of all the implications of his name, which is his given name, given by the father of a son who no longer had a mother, because she was left with a void in her womb where the life had been and which could only be lined with the life of her self. Some said Void killed his mother, pulling the life out of her on his way out, others that she killed herself to push him out, pushing out her life with him, and still others say there's no such thing as life. Void can never pay or be paid back with checks, as his name once written on them renders them all utterly worthless. So he uses cash, cash that he receives in lumps from his father. Cash which he keeps in the magazine pocket under the armchair's left arm rest where rests his left arm. If there are no magazines per se in the magazine pocket where rests the money, and of this there is no way to be sure, then surely there is money in the magazine pocket with which he, if he could bring himself to rise from the armchair, which he can not, could buy magazines, magazines lined with articles, articles lined with paragraphs, paragraphs with words, words with letters, letters lined with meaninglessness unless placed in sequences in words, paragraphs, articles, magazines. Sentences don't exist for Void; they exist only for purposes of punctuation, which Void could never grasp, perhaps because it makes one pause. Void doesn't pause from sitting in order to turn his head; this he is unable to do. But sometimes he, without pausing, turns his eyes, if his eye muscles can muster enough momentum to the left or right to overcome the friction between his eyelids and eyeballs. This is how he glances.
Void listens. As it is with listening, Void hears. He hears the door nearer him on the right, which isn't a door at all, and therefore doesn't open or close any space, and also therefore can't be heard. It is a doorway, if anything at all, a place where a door could have been, but where exists only a plane of air, through which Void, at the angle of his glance, can see only the inside of one of the bare walls which closes the space of the kitchen. And if it isn't the door that doesn't exist that Void hears, and of this there is no way to be sure, then surely it is the kitchen he hears, lined with dusty appliances, or, more specifically, he hears the engine of the refrigerator, the refrigerator lined with expired jars of jelly, mayonnaise, salsa, and other condiments of the world, the jars lined with mold, the mold with green and white hairs. Hairs which, Void noticed the last time he was in the kitchen (it must have been October, if a month at all), could have been attached to the haired head of a miniature, middle- to old-aged Incredible Hulk. And if there were a tiny, old Incredible Hulk, and of this there is no way to be sure (given that the Hulk is in-credible in the first place), then surely this Hulk would be much weaker than his life-sized, younger self. Mold doesn't exist for Void; it exists only for those who eat, who eat only to discover the mold on their half-eaten bread. Only the hairs exist, and even they are incredible.
Void changes. But not his position. As it is with condiments, they enhance some things and drown out others, and they are worldly. As his condiments may suggest, and depending on one's definition of the world, a definition which for Void changes hourly and minutely, but mostly secondly, Void is a worldly guy. One second the world, if a world at all, was the mold in the jar of salsa which he hasn't seen directly in months but which, with a little effort, he could see in his head's eye, and the next second the world is his oyster, an oyster which he calls Shirley and keeps in the magazine pocket under the armchair's right arm rest where rests his right arm. Mollusks don't exist for void, who has never seen one; they exist as a classification only for those trying to fix the world in a human fashion. Only the oyster exists, only he doesn't call it an oyster; he calls it Shirley. If there are no magazines per se in the magazine pocket where rests Shirley, and of this there is no way to be sure, then surely there is Shirley in the magazine pocket lined with the smell of a bony oyster shell, the shell lined with an inevitably decaying, dried-up oyster, the oyster with grains of silicon, silicon once lined with the potentialities of a pearl.
Void notices. As it is with the noticed, nothing is unnoticeable. Void is positioned to notice the noticeable, which is everything, if anything at all, that isn't on the other side of a wall and, if nothing at all, everything that is. If Void does nothing other than sit, and of this there is no way to be sure, then surely he notices he is sitting amid noticeable things. As a noticer, he notices that noticing things is lined with awareness, awareness lined with self-awareness, self-awareness with self, self with the senses, the senses with implications of a self. Other positioning pertaining to the noticeable doesn't exist for Void, other positioning for Void other than pertaining to his arms on the arm rest of the armchair; it exists only for others in any other position than Void's self's. And forget about north, south, east, west in all of their classified vicissitudes. The directions are kitchen, clock, bathroom, bedroom, TV, and that other room in which he has never been, behind the locked further door on the right which closes a space he has never seen. Not that he names them as directions. Directions imply motion, motion a change in position.
Void feels. As it is with feeling, it is unstoppable, except by drugs which Void doesn't have. So he feels, but he feels acutely as if his skin were of an onion's. Just as he hears acutely as if his ears were of corn's, popping at the slightest of barometric pressure swells. In fact he feels as if his body were lined with ears, ears lined with cilia, cilia with wax, wax with the stickiness necessary to take hold of the vibrating molecules and pull them out of the room. And if the ears of his body hear the air vent above him as if the vent were shouting and swearing at him, if to Void it is that loud, and of this there is no way to be sure (though Void swears on his haired head that it is), then surely he feels the weight of his shirt pulling him down, the air working to apply pressure from all sides of his eardrummed body. Units of work don't exist for Void; joules exist for only the workers and the drones\emdash not that Void is a queen or a king\emdash and for the sun that has to watch earth work all day. Only the energy itself exists: potential energy\emdash the gravity that sinks Void into himself and himself into the chair\emdash and kinetic energy\emdash the vent air, the shower water, the photons that shower him with television, and his synapses\emdash kinetic energy which never seems to overcome his inertia, to slip past the taunting friction that never allows his getting out of the chair to become more than a question that is out of the question.
Void smells. As it is with smelling, subject and object merge. Void smells, in every sense of the word. Only on occasion, usually it's when the refrigerator's engine pauses or when the air vent above him stops shouting at him, does the smell of the oyster Shirley or the smell of himself or the smell of his laundry in a pile in the room which is opened and closed by the further door on the left bother Void, and when it does, it really does. But he can do little about it, little about the impending nostalgia unendingly attending smells of this sort, nostalgia lined with oceans, oceans lined with beaches, beaches with tanning bodies, bodies with beads of sweat, beads of sweat with reflected suns. Sweat doesn't exist for Void; it exists for only those who have forgotten how to stop and smell the sweating. Only the smell exists, the smell of sweat on his bare back, between his bony legs, that reminds him of sweat, that reminds him that he has forgotten the memory that sweat once existed. If the subject and object merge, and of this we can't be sure, but could get a pretty good idea from watching Void's arms melt into the arm rests of the armchair that sinks into the floor where the carpet starts running towards the television that mutes itself among the hallway that passes into the rooms that become the walls, then surely the walls will separate themselves.