The Shape of Unexistence

i.

The universe takes shape with the press of hands, the careful glide of scissors, the measured dive and lift of stitches. Chalk outlines physics, pins hold matter in place, threads join together imagination, and there it is: gravity, matter, stardust.

And from everything that’s left—the scraps of fabric, the trimmed threads, the chalk dust—there’s you.

You are not a creation, because you were never created. You do not exist, because you are not part of existence. You are just you—the refuse of a state of being, the piece that’s left when a shape is cut out of paper. You are the pauses between words, the gaps between sentences, the photonegative around thoughts.

When you ask God what you’re supposed to be, She says: “I don’t know. I didn’t make you.”

ii.

To say I am, one must first be. Light, for example, can say I am the Light, because it is so. As can Life and Love and Hope—they are, and so they are. To be is a verb, existence an action. This, you reckon, is why God says, I am that I am—the ultimate expression of being, of movement, of definition. The universe, Her carefully crafted mirror image, is an unfurling of everything She is—all that being and movement and definition picked apart into atoms and molecules, chemical reactions, stages and cycles. It’s God slowed down, God refined into Her smallest structures, God pulled taut into is-was-will-bes and could-haves and should-haves.

In contrast, you are what’s left behind when ‘am’ is carved into reality, the remains and exhaust of when something expends energy to exist. You don’t move, and you don’t do things; you are what is moved, and things are done to you. You are in perpetual passive voice, constantly in a state of is taken, is cut up, is spaced apart. You exist like blackout poetry:

In contrast, you are what’s left behind when ‘am’ is carved into reality, the remains and exhaust of when something expends energy to exist. You don’t move, you don’t do things; you are what is moved, and things are done to you. You are in perpetual passive voice, constantly in a state of is taken, is cut up, is spaced apart. You exist like blackout poetry:

“Am I Absence?” you ask God.

“No,” She says. “Absence is lack. A hole punctured into where something should be. You are what surrounds that puncture wound, and so you cannot be Absence.”

“Then am I Excess?”

“Not in the way it exists within the universe. You are outside of it, remember? You are not made of gravity or matter or stardust. You cannot be a consequence of physicality.”

You mull on it. There is no length of time for how long, because you do not operate within time. “Then, am I Uncreation?”

God considers it for a second. “Perhaps.”

iii.

Here is a list of things about what you aren’t:

You are not Death because Death is a ceasing. It’s not the puncture wound of Absence—Absence is what Death leaves behind—simply the halt and grind of movement, whatever that movement is: living, being, existing. You were never in motion, so you can never cease.

You are not Nothing because Nothing stands in opposition to something. Empty space in contrast to occupied space. A fashioned blankness cut into being. You cannot be occupied, so you cannot be empty either.

You are not Possibility because you have no capacity to happen. No potential waiting to be kinetic, because potentiality means to hold every choice, every word, every emotion. You cannot unearth reality from the bedrock of creation’s imagination.

iv.

“…am I a mistake?” you ask God.

She shrugs. “For you to be one, there would have to have been intent behind your formation, an intent that would have gone unfulfilled. And I didn’t make you,” She repeats. “So, I don’t know.”

v.

Everything in the universe is named: the heavens and the earth, time and space, life and death. A name defines, calls, binds, in the way a second can never be longer than it is because it would cease to be a second. A name gives form, sets limits, ties a neat bow on how something functions. It is concept condensed into a singular designation. The universe herself is named, and what a fitting one for a mirror of God. “Universe”—“All that is one,” named after “I am that I am.”

“Uncreation,” on the other hand, is a clunky and ill-fitting container for what you are, because you were never meant to be leashed by words. Words are and words exist, and for something beyond both, the task of squeezing all you are into the rigidity of language is like asking the space of a page to fold into the letters printed onto it. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just impossible. You are formless, limitless, and functionless. You cannot find home in a name.

You wonder what it’s like to know the hallways that spell out one’s name, the bends and curves of its stairs, the climbs and slides of its levels. Is it a journey to write it out, an adventure to carefully navigate the terrain of its strokes? Is it a carefully constructed structure, meant to shelter whatever it represents? Is it strong enough to carry the weight of everything something is, will, and could be, like BEING or SELF or HEART?

You wonder if the sound that must be uttered to speak the words are spacious enough, comfortable enough, to sit in. Heart—just one syllable in one language, drawn out to fit snug in a second; puso—two in another language, two small rooms for people to live together; こころ—three kana, three spots to be comfortable in, but in kanji, 心—four strokes, four sections of a household; kasing-kasing—four syllables, twelve letters, so much space for all the things a heart can carry; two words bridged by a hyphen as if holding hands.

To be named is to belong, if not to others, then to oneself. You do not have a name because you have no function, no form, no limit. You cannot be named because you are what’s pushed aside when a name is spoken into existence.

vi.

“What is it like?” you ask the universe. “To be, I mean.”

“I am anything and everything,” she says. “Every action that was, is, and will be taken, could have been, and was not. I am life and death, want and apathy, need and revulsion. I am joy and sorrow, peace and anger, love and hate. I am connection as I am disconnection. I am companionship as I am solitude.”

“I see,” you say. “I don’t know how that would feel.”

“And I don’t know how to feel anything other than that,” she says. “What is it like not to be?”

“I am what’s left around your question,” you say.

“Does it hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it lonely?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to hold the things you do; I don’t know how to be any part of you.”

The universe mulls on that. “That’s sad.”

“I don’t know what that is like either,” you say. “Do you suppose this makes us opposites? You are the summary of every noun, verb, and adverb, the distillation of every possibility and manifested reality. Subjects are beyond me, objects more so, and prepositions and adjectives might as well be distant daydreams.”

“Perhaps,” she says. “I am activity, and you are passivity. The apotheosis of dominion and submission, respectively.”

“Ah,” you say. “Are we equals, in this sense?”

She quiets for a moment. “I suppose we are,” she says eventually. “I am what I am, and this cannot be changed; if I were not in this shape, then I would not be me. In that same way, you cannot be anything other than yourself. And for that, we stand equal.”

You consider the thought. “Unexistence to Existence,” you say. “I am the consequence of all you are.”

“Perhaps,” she says. “Or maybe I am the consequence of all you are.”

Like two halves of a whole. Or two faces of the same beast. Or something beyond being and not being split apart.

vii.

“Was I taken from you, or were you taken from me?” the universe asks you. “Were you cleaved off of me, or was I dug out of you?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “God didn’t make me.”

“She made me,” the universe says. “But I don’t know the answer to that either. I don’t remember what it was like before I was made. I don’t know if you and I were together, then pulled apart.”

“Well, I don’t think that would have been us anyway,” you say. “If I were you and you were me, then we wouldn’t be each other, remember? You would not be All that is One, and I would not be what you leave behind.”

“Perhaps one day I will remember. Perhaps one day I will know,” she says. “Both are being, after all, and I am everything that is, can be, and will be. Maybe all it takes is time, and one day I will return to you.”

“Then we would cease.”

“Does that scare you?”

“I don’t know how to be afraid.”

“That’s alright,” the universe says. “I can be afraid for both of us. I can miss what it was like when we were together for both of us too.”

You hum. “Is that me belonging to something, do you think?”

“Maybe,” the universe says. “I belong to you like you belong to me. And when I end, we’ll reunite.”

Maybe that’s the trick to it all. Maybe you would never fit everything you are to a name because you’re the one that’s supposed to cradle a name. Maybe you would never know how to feel fear or longing because you’re what’s supposed to cradle fear and longing. You’re what’s around a question, the canvas on which it exists.

“Do you think it would hurt, when we cease?” you ask.

“Yes.”

“Do you think it would be lonely?”

“No,” the universe says. “We’d be coming home to each other."