Charlie’s big nothing

The Grand Canyon was the biggest nothing Charlie had ever seen.  There was something tangible, palpable about that nothing.  It was almost an entity unto itself.  Photos he’d been shown gave an approximation of the depth and the width, although even the photos were deceiving.  But the reality of it was something else completely. 

A gentle breeze swirled; no threat of gusts shoving him off the edge but nonetheless, he was wary.  Those breezes, even they seemed preternatural!  Occasionally (no, surely not) he heard his name whispered into his left ear.  He’d heard nothing in that ear for 11 years.

Something echoed in the canyon.  Dusk painted the walls of the canyon the colors that his art professor told him didn’t exist in nature.  Could she have been so wrong?  But there was his name again, most certainly in his left ear.  Charlie began to sway.  Feeling dizzy, he backed away from the edge of the canyon.  His unhearing left ear never detected the truck.

 

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