once there was an empty referent.
it was sad but did not know because it was only an empty referent.
if it had known to ask, it might have answered itself that it was sad because it was alone.
it is pointless to attempt to describe what else the empty referent might have spoken to itself for obvious reasons, but that much is true.
it was sad because it was alone.
even though it had no idea it was an empty referent, much less, a sad, lonely one, so it didn’t mind, particularly.
nothing happened to it forever.
had it any awareness of itself and the world around it, it might have seen the world around it, and in that fantastic world other empty referents floating around or going to town, or even masquerading as godlike referents with meaning: being spoken, associated, and understood as, well, something, meaningful and important, through the mistake or deceit of the auditor or speaker.
it had no such awareness.
it was ignorant of such abominations.
it would not have recognized another empty referent if it had bit it on its finger.
(which, another empty referent did not.)
it was ignorant.
of everything and itself, except for the lingering sadness, which persisted, sometimes more, sometimes less acutely – not that it noticed, having no sense of time or the comparison of things.
it simply existed.
and there it lay, printed, splayed, on an otherwise unmarked page, in an unread book that was never made out of bark from a tree that never grew to offer its hide nor its shade to a glade, in any world but this.
so it went forever.
and then one day it said – not knowing itself,
nor knowing itself to speak – it said, “What the hell, it beats not being.”
and, although it was true in the telling, at that moment everything ceased to be.