Nothing, But, by Loretta Lynne Finan

Nothing But Words Here, by Aurailieus (USA) c 2014

Nothing, But

The abstract painting hangs on a too-white wall over my computer monitor, mocking, taunting. Nothing But Words Here, it says in ragged blue brushstrokes. I bought it off a local painter at the Emerald Lounge, a skinny downtown bar choked with cigarette smoke and sunrise alcoholics. The painter’s works were featured throughout the bar; only suburban tourists like me bought them. I paid the asking price, no haggling, and pulled it off the greasy faux walnut-paneled wall myself. 

I carried it to our table full of writers and propped it up on an empty chair; we clinked glasses, admiring. They had come to Florida to speak at a conference and drink. I lived here, so instead of attending an arranged tour of St. Pete Beach (where we were expected to—of all things—write!), I lured this bunch into day drinking at the city’s downtown dives. We stared at the painting, toasting its color, its composition, its words, and applauded our cleverness at having stumbled drunk into a work of art. 

Drunk, I took it home and hung it over my writing desk. 

I sought its inspiration when I was blocked. 

Now we’re hung. It on the wall; I in my chair. Both of us stuck. 

I sometimes try to figure out what the artist was trying to say with the vertical slashes and corner hash marks. What it means that the colors are so bright and the sentiment so dim. Why his breathy strokes on the front side of the D and back side of the S are painted so lightly that from a certain angle, it seems to read Nothing But Work Here. I stare at it, wondering. But there’s nothing you can know about what an artist intended. They can’t tell you a story that will satisfy your mind.

***

I adored the painting before I became nothing.

**

Nothing is invisible, everywhere and nowhere, useless, unseen. Nothing is nobody. Nothing has nobody. Nothing had somebody when she was something, but somebody couldn’t bear her being nothing. Somebody couldn’t be expected to care for nothing. To love nothing. 

The culture, meaning the internet, has strong opinions about nothing. Nothing doesn’t look sick, they say. Nothing looks the same as ever. Nothing acts the same as always. Nothing could be something again if nothing really wanted to. Nothing enjoys a free ride, that’s all. The culture has shade to throw, and it never ever holds back. Sorry, not sorry.

The internet may be right. Nothing can’t fight back. Nothing can’t change anything, move anything, love anything—not the way the internet says a thing needs to be changed, moved, loved. 

The best that nothing can do for the somethings is commit suicide. 

**

Yet I sit under my abstract painting and stare at the computer monitor, living. I pull a blanket around my shoulders to ward off the opioid shivers and try to work. The cursor blinks and blinks, daring me to touch the keyboard. Daring me to be something.

“Nothing but nothing here,” I tell the painting. 

I write a sentence. Read it. Select all and press delete. 

I shift my body, put both hands on the keyboard, take them away again. A sudden lightning bolt crashes through my spine. Electric force slams across ragged demyelinated nerves, compelling my arms and legs to jerk and seize. My vision dissolves to an icefall; my teeth ache down to my collarbone. I wait, helpless, until the electricity relents, then towel the sweat from my skin and give up sitting in front of the computer. But I don’t turn it off. I leave the cursor to wait, blinking mindlessly, for my return. As if I’m getting back at it.

The memory foam daybed in my office is the only surface soft enough to subdue my body’s complaints. I lower myself onto it and stretch out gingerly, offering a silent prayer to gods I don’t believe in. Outside loom gathering thunderstorms; inside, the monitor shines sleep-confounding blue light onto my empty chair. Clenching my teeth as my body settles, I close my eyes and drift but do not sleep. 

The painting and I are back in the Emerald Lounge. Dense tobacco smoke stings my eyes to tears, but I see it hanging where I first encountered it: in the back near the restroom. 

“It’s mine,” I say, starting toward it. I mean to take it off the wall, bring it home, hang it above my desk. It’s mine. 

Before I can reach it, the painting leaps from the wall, lands on the threadbare burgundy carpeting and begins to shriek. It wrenches its frame first one way and then the other, panting. Rivulets of blue and yellow paint sweat run onto the carpet, under the pool table, behind the bar. The painting grunts and heaves, cursing. Twisting and roiling, its canvas splits horizontally and vertically, tearing a gash from center to stapled spines. It wails, shaking the rafters, rattling the leaded glass windows, and a river of color pours from its ruptured center as it collapses in a heap of shredded fabric and splintered wood. 

It’s made something! 

“It’s mine!” I say, pushing past a dozen bleary but intrigued onlookers to kneel beside it. What is it? What will it be in this world? What will it mean? I stare at the wreckage on the floor, but nothing emerges.

When I open my eyes, the painting is above my desk, intact. Forever speaking-silent. I groan and pull myself from the daybed, drop into my chair, and tap the mouse to make my word-a-day screensaver disappear. The cursor waits on a white page; I blink back at it and place my fingers on the home keys. Ignoring the turbulence in my spine, I push the air from my lungs and begin again.

Unchanged, the painting looks on.

Loretta Lynne Finan
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​Loretta Lynne Finan is a neurodiverse writer from a long line of Irish-American yarn spinners. She lives in small town Florida with her musician husband where they spend their days puttering around with DIY home improvement projects and creating art for its own sake.