Story Submission: The Knife of Nothingness
Written by Holden Kennicott
The horsemen of the Apocalypse are on their way…
Mary sat on the train and read. She raised her eyes and watched a young man hold his girl. The two looked at each other tenderly.
She wondered who these horsemen were to be. Perhaps they were the folly of society, or the dusty, vague vices in the back of people’s minds. Maybe these horsemen would be old friends, father figures, pretty women with gray hearts.
The train was slow. An old French couple, looking dazed, stood beside the empty spot next to Mary. She offered them her seat, but had forgotten how to say “you’re welcome” in French.
The train passed 49th Street. Mary dreamt of Renaissance Lombardy. What a wonderful time in history… the air must have been thick with new ideas and Alpine fog…
The train jolted to a stop. A woman complained about the delay. The New York City subway was dreary, a rigmarole of bodies. The grass was always greener on the other side.
Mary blamed her father for her own dazed existence. He did not read the newspapers or watch the television. Outside his family people’s sparse words did not surmount his wall of solitude. He was invested in old books and words. At times he would resurface, astonished, bewildered, lost. Mary asked him once about his exodus to the books.
He had turned to look at her and said, “Elie Wiesel once said that books no longer have the power they once did,” he stubbed out his cigarette, “We’re all books. All stories, some shorter, longer, more eloquent…” They sat in the penumbra of the light coming from the Tiffany lamp.
“He was right. I feel our actions and thoughts no longer serve the same purpose. DeLillo said the more books we publish the weaker they become. And what if we reached a point in time in which writers became harmless, no longer considered to be ordinary prophets? It’s a shallow world out there, a stagnant pond. I have waited for a paraclete to come down, waited for some illumination. I’ve been waiting a long time. I see no sign of Providence. Bits and pieces float around but they are difficult to catch. I can only find them in these books… for me… I shut myself out because I can… I’ve done my part. I have accomplished everything I wanted in life. Including having you, sweet Mary,” he smiled and stroked his daughter’s cheek.
Mary finished her work early that day in class. She sat in her seat and thought about her father’s words. Did he imagine himself to be an ontologist, or an anchorite when he was waiting for this paraclete? He acted as if times had changed, as if they were different now from before.
Times were not different, God, they never changed! The horsemen were always there, always coming. They would be there forever, until that moment in which the cosmos would blur, a great void opening, the sun bursting into a million pieces-
“What book is that?” A girl named Rachel was looking at the book on Mary’s desk.
Mary blinked, caught off guard. “Mephisto, it’s called,” Rachel’s face was blank, but she nodded. Mary thought this girl might be a dilettante. “It’s by Klaus Mann.” Still nodding, Rachel turned away to a group of girls that sat in the corner.
Mary turned to look at her friend. She saw that Stevie was reading a beat-up book in French.
“Where’d you get it?” Mary motioned towards the book with her chin.
“Dunno. On the floor in my father’s office, I think. I’ll give it to you when I’ve finished,” Stevie finally looked up at Mary, “Christ, did you get any sleep? You look real beat-up, Mary,”
“I’m alright. I’ve got something to give you, a book,”
“Doctor Zhivago?” Stevie put down her French book and looked at the new one, intrigued.
“Yes. It’s very important to me. Tell me what you think, okay?”
A few days later Stevie and Mary sat in a tree in Central Park. “What’s the name of the author of this book? I’ve forgotten,”
Mary opened her eyes. Images of Transcaspia disappeared and trickled quickly into a box in her mind. The dream would sit there, with the other ones, for a while. “His name was Pasternak,” she answered.
“How wonderful, how smart he must have been. I’m sure he was beautiful; a complete being. Spiritually well-rounded and brown eyed,” Stevie chewed on her bubblegum cigarette, unconscious of her own talking, superficially asleep.
Mary smiled. Her eyes closed again as she listened to Stevie’s quiet singing. This time she dreamt of the great Manchurian steppe, its grasses rustling, quiet.
Later that day Mary was crossing Park Avenue when a large car slammed into her. A great void opened in front of the girl. She thought this was the end of the world, that now, the sun would burst into a million pieces. It did not.
This was a darker void. She teetered on the edge. To fall forward meant death; no more chances, no daydreams, no more light streaming in through the windows. To keep balance was to stay alive, to go back. With shame, Mary admitted to herself that she did not know what to do, which side to pick. Should it not be easy? Why was it that she cried sometimes, when she thought no one was listening? The reason for which I cry, God, Is because I like to watch myself writhe under a knife of nothingness. I am always holding the knife, of course… Horrors flashed before her eyes. What had caused her to become so blind to life’s qualities, so reluctant in every daily action assigned to her? And what of that effervescent soul which inhabited her once upon a time, where was it? What was its name? Mary hoped it was asleep, that it would soon wake up.
The hospital room was cold. Her mother had been crying. Mary’s father watched his daughter as she slept quietly. He was frightened, shocked at what had happened, and convinced that he was a terrible father, a blackguard of a man.
When Mary came to, her parents stood beside the hospital bed. She wanted to reach out and touch them. “Oh, God, Mary, I wish you wouldn’t daydream so much!” her mother sobbed. Mary looked at them with sadness, unable to move.
The effervescent soul had not woken up. Yet Mary felt she was forgetting something, as if the metropolis inside her head was fading, diminishing. Perhaps one day she would remember her revelations at the edge of the void.
Mary felt no physical pain. She was without substance, veiled, a clear box in which colorful ideas bobbed and floated around. She felt she would only die if she should stop thinking.
Everything would be alright. She would retreat to her dreams. The world would build itself up again from the quarry inside of her.
She closed her eyes and dreamt of old America. The road to Durango snaked ahead of her. It was the Wild West, a lost world.
Holden Kennicott chose to submit this story anonymously. Happy reading!