Nothing

Nothing

by Mike Pollock

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The words were a challenge, no explanation needed. He pressed this line of questioning further, insulted my mother, my sisters, even my pets. His foul tongued tirade left no stone unturned as he sought to bury me beneath shame and despair.

I nodded with each hurled barb, let the sting wash over me like motivation, gathering the shock of his words into the pit of my being. It filled me slowly, like a battery charged slowly over time.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

His words seemed to intensify, his eye twitched and he took a step closer. The vitriol in his voice transformed in that moment, confident one liners devolved into nervous retorts.

“Yo momma so fat…” He began, but his voice wavered and died on the word. “Yo… Yo momma…” He stepped back at that. The darkness in his eyes faded and he glanced this way and that, as if searching for back up.

“No one’s coming.” I said, finally.

I felt the energy in me then, felt it like the warm glow of a hearth. His power leached, he cowered at my ferocity. I hurled no insults, instead I stalked him down, my eyes aflame in the righteous anger a man can only show once his soul has been laid bare.

“Nothing.”

The word was finality. It was destruction, rebirth, and continuity. It was everything.

“Nothing, is wrong with me.” I said, feeling myself grow. Suddenly he was a child, bleating carelessly at the sky. He fought to regain control but his arms flailed and he remained trapped where he was.

“There is nothing wrong with any of us!” I raised my voice for the first time, and a stray thunderclap illuminated the space between us. His shaking turned to quaking, and in a sudden vibrating climax, he ceased to exist.