Distance, 1993

The car stopped beside a monument and everyone got out. The kid spotted the big green hillside sweeping away and he let out a short cry of joy and amazement and he started running right down it, right away. He could hear the grownups’ voices, amused and laughing behind him.

“Hey,” one said. “Somebody’s making a fast break.”

“Looks like a runaway,” observed another.

“Come back, come back,” another advised without conviction. “You’ll be lost.”

But he couldn’t have turned back if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have stopped running, because something drew him into it faster and faster, was it gravity? He’d never seen anything so large, so boundless, so wide open, never dreamed there was so much endless space. How could he help but race right into it? How could anyone resist? And the farther he ran, the more it seemed to expand, the greater it all became. He ran and ran toward the far-off line of the woods as the line of the woods began subtly to shift and recede. It was the ground beneath his feet that seemed to be moving, not he, he only ran to meet the earth as it already moved. And there was nothing but nothing all around, vast and accommodating, nothingness that you could run into, nothingness that took you in: immense nothingness and a little bit of air, that’s all it was. He’d never seen so much of it before. Did he see it or did he simply feel it? He wasn’t seeing it with his eyes. How could he see it this way? He’d never known it existed, this nothingness. Until now, he’d never known it was there. Right there. Always. And now he was knowing. His legs and muscles were knowing. Now he knew. He’d never heard about this in school, but his teachers were probably clueless …

Then the arm of a highway appeared, yawning a beam of blueness on the nothing of the green, and he was ready to bet it went on and on and on forever. Forever.

Somewhere behind him, the grownups were busy admiring the monument. Who knew what that was all about? Some poor bastard was probably buried under it or something.