Cyril watched as Artik and Makoto left to find the remaining dragon balls. Cyril would help but of course they had his dragon radar so he would probably never find a dragon ball if he looked now. Cyril decided to fly around and do nothing in particular for about a thousand words or so. He flew away from the Guru’s tower to nowhere in particular and thought about what he was going to do. Nothing in particular, Cyril decided. He would nothing of any note whatsoever. He would just travel around, not even looking at anything in particular, or talking to any one of any importance, nor would he progress any sort of personal story line. Cyril wouldn’t even think about anything that would be even remotely interesting. He decided that yes, yes this would be for the best. To do nothing. Occasionally you just need to do nothing, you know? You just sometimes need to do absolutely. Nothing. Cyril thought it would be impressive to do absolutely nothing until Artik and Makoto returned. He thought it would be surprising, considering his productive nature. But no, Cyril decided, he would not be any sort of productive today. Not one ounce of productivity. Just. Flying. About. Doing nothing. Cyril briefly wondered if he could pull it off. Doing nothing for too long was simply unnatural to Cyril. Cyril was beginning to doubt himself. Already he wanted to do something that was not nothing, that is to say, anything. But Cyril held it together. He ignored the impulse, the heavy need, to do something. Anything. Cyril believed in himself; he believed in his ability to do absolutely nothing. Why, if Cyril could live without beating his hearts, or contracting his diaphragm to change the air pressure in his lungs thus drawing in the oxygen necessary for survival, he would indeed make a conscious decision to stop his beating hearts and other involuntary muscle contractions. But, of course, Cyril could not stop those cursed and unceasing actions. Not that he wasn’t capable of it! Cyril could of course stop all of his muscles consciously, but he just needed to live right now so he would not.
An hour passed and still there was no Artik or Makoto.
You know, it’s a strange thing to do absolutely nothing. You begin to feel your muscles fall asleep. You feel your brain start to get fuzzy and sleepy. You feel as if the satellites of the puny planet you reside on are messing with the flow of vital liquids inside you. As if your body is an ocean, and the orbiting objects of the planet are the moon. And the moon pulls on your body, the ocean, so you begin sway lightly. You begin to feel as if you are one with the planet, and the sun, and the moon, and the infinite black void.
Cyril wasn’t feeling that quite yet. In fact he wasn’t even close. It had, after all, only been an hour. Cyril resisted the urge to sigh in boredom because that would be doing something that is nothing. And we couldn’t have that now, could we? No. No, we could not you poor, foolish, and easily manipulated mortal. Cyril decided (not consciously of course, because that would mean he had done something which is not nothing) that to get into the mood of true nothingness he would think about the philosophical implications of nothingness. Thoughts of the philosophy behind nothingness drifted to Cyril’s mind (not of his own volition of course, because that would mean he had done something.) It’s funny. Nothing is treated as a noun in language when really nothing should be denoted as nothing. A noun means that something is a thing, but nothing is no-thing so how could it be a noun? A syllogism came to mind in which this logical fallacy consisting of four terms is made fun of.
1. The Devil is greater than nothing.
2. There is nothing greater than God.
3. Therefore, the Devil is greater than God.
The four terms in this example are God, the Devil, the nothing-that-is-a-thing that the Devil is greater than, and nothing as no-thing or not-some-thing (there does not exist something that is greater than God). The error in the conclusion stems from equating nothing-as-a-thing with no-thing which are not the same thing. Isn’t that just the funniest? Of course Cyril didn’t laugh. Nor did he really acknowledge the fallacy. Because that, as we know by now, would mean he has done something which is not nothing. We absolutely cannot have that! Did you know there is a huge difference between the eastern hemisphere of earth’s concept of nothingness and the western hemisphere of earth’s concept of nothingness? It’s true! For instance, Śūnyatā, or “emptiness”, is considered a state of mind quite unlike western “nothingness” which is “nothing”. Buddhism uses that concept in meditation, Cyril believes. Though Cyril may be mistaken. Not that he believed it right now, because right now he was doing absolutely nothing. In western philosophy the study of nothing is often believed to be pointless and not worthy of any thought whatsoever. But the silly human race of course devotes large amounts of time to considering nothingness. It has been treated as a serious, noteworthy topic of philosophy. It can be confusing at times but with uses of terms such as “not-being” in use it is much easier to follow along.
All of these thoughts floated to Cyril’s consciousness and he didn’t acknowledge a single word of it because, as we well know by now, that would mean he did something that is not nothing. How impressive is that? Cyril is definitely going to be proud of himself when this is over. Very, very proud. He is subconsciously sure that he will have gained a new, unprecedented control over his mind and body when he is done doing absolutely nothing in particular. Cyril awoke from doing nothing after a few hours. Cyril felt great!
Word Count: 1,000 exactly.
