Testimony

There was a time when “one” did not imply “zero.”   I’ve tried to imagine life without zeroes, a world of absolute presences and no possibility of absence. Imagine a world of gods without question, of angels that do not leave like dreams and demons that do not hide in the shadows. Of all that is sure and certain, not in hope of resurrection, but simply being.

The Babylonians, Chinese, and Mayans all invented something akin to the zero at various times in history, but it took Buddha to say “There is nothing” and close his index finger and thumb to make a zero. Did he mean to kill the gods?

Bataille tells us that most of what we do is a diversion from the zero, an insistence upon action that will save me from the zero. Can I, sitting here with pen in hand, deny the need for action, for activity, for words to save me from nothing?

Jacob answered the phone. The caller identified herself as God, and sought Jacob’s opinion: Was it true that she had died? If so, she wanted to know, would it have an effect on her time-share booking? She was looking forward to a little time off.

Jacob pondered all these questions in his heart. He looked to the phone and said “ah-nate-sa’ (which means “there is nothing”),

It would be clever to say that Jacob later suffered some nasty denouement for this offense, that God in her anger found a way to punish Jacob, but the truth is, nothing happened, zero.