The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

the Made, begin to realize that we are not superior to the Unmade after all. Those are your divisions, the false dichotomies and hegemonic hierarchies of materialist colonizers.

All the kids were tired these days. They stayed up late, texting and posting on social media and watching videos on YouTube. They stayed indoors playing games online, inhabiting multiple roles in massive multiplayer virtual realities, moving up and down levels, hunting zombies, killing terrorists, mining natural resources, forging tools, accumulating goods, building towns, cities and empires, defending planets, hearts pounding, adrenaline pumping, narrowly avoiding permadeath as they tried simply to survive, and this was on top of their afterschool activities, their music lessons and soccer practice. No wonder they were tired. They led exhausting lives.

They were accustomed to death, and this was a minor one. There was nobody stalking the halls armed with automatic weapons, no swords or light sabers, no bloody carnage, nothing left at the window except for a brown smudge of downy feathers, stuck to the glass and too small for them to notice, and so they turned away. The window noticed, though, and started to whimper. The teacher continued with the lesson. The pane of glass started to vibrate as its cries grew shrill.

Her voice sounded tired but kind, and Benny wanted to answer, but her desk was cluttered with ballpoint pens and paper clips and rubber bands and overstuffed file folders, and it was hard for him to pick her words out from all the noise they were making.

importance of getting kids moving! less sitting at desks more making up things as they go and adapting and thinking and creating

I AM SILENTLY

Benny sighed, and as the air left his lungs, he seemed to grow smaller. When he spoke, his words were so quiet,

The voices were still new to him, and he’d never tried to speak for them before. He didn’t realize how hard it would be.

“It used to be sand,” he said. “It remembers being sand. It remembers the birds, the way their feet felt, walking. Making little tracks. It never wanted to be glass. It never wanted to be sneakily transparent. It likes birds, likes watching them from the window, so it was crying. I shouldn’t have hit it, but I needed it to stop.” He glanced up then at the old woman’s face that was creased all over with a hundred million lines of worry and confusion. “Forget it.”

Was Benny right about the glass remembering itself before it was made molten? As sand, could it have felt the tickle of birds’ feet, or is this a problem of language and translation? Benny had only the most rudimentary eighth-grade vocabulary to work with, but he was doing his best to translate the Umwelt of things into words.

Human language is a clumsy tool. People have such a hard time understanding each other, so how can you even begin to imagine the subjectivities of animals and insects and plants, never mind pebbles and sand? Bound as you are by your senses—so blunt and yet so beautiful—it’s impossible for you to imagine that the myriad beings you dismiss as insentient might have inner lives, too.

We are sensible, if not sentient. We are semi-living.

She rose laboriously, grateful to the little blue chair for not giving up on her,

I remember how good it felt to hold on to her ankle. The bone was solid and sharp, and I remember holding it and looking out from between her legs at the kids on the outside and feeling like even though they were staring at me, they couldn’t see me. It made me feel secret and safe.

I remember how the stories sounded from underneath, not like they were coming from someone’s mouth or face, which is what they sounded like on the outside, but more like they were coming from all around, from the stool, from the carpet, from the librarian’s skirt. From everywhere, buzzing and bleating and hooting.

This book is not just about your belongings. It’s about living a life where you truly belong.

Think of us as a mycelium, a vast, subconscious fungal mat beneath a forest floor, and each book a fruiting body. Like mushrooms, we are a collectivity. Our pronouns are we, our, us. Because we’re all connected, we communicate all the time—agreeing, disagreeing, gossiping about other books, name-dropping, and quoting each other—and we have our preferences and prejudices, too.

But that night, Annabelle was not quite ready for Tidy Magic.

but books are patient. We know how urgent and compelling your lives are, and so we bide our time.

She was leaning forward, looking encouraging and interested. Too interested. Greedy, even.

Over the next few sessions, in that bright little office, a pattern of misunderstanding began to emerge.

She wore him down with her stupid suggestions. She got everything backward.

didn’t wave back right away. He just stood there, rooted, unsure of himself in these alien surroundings, as if his body no longer knew what to do, whether it was okay to move, to wave, to bolt, to run to his mother.

What makes a person want so much? What gives things the power to enchant, and is there any limit to the desire for more?

The steady level of ambient noise in the ward was comforting; the low murmur emanating from behind the desk at the nurses station, the sound of the meal trolleys being wheeled through the corridors. You might think a psych ward would be a mad, cacophonous place, but oddly, Benny found there were fewer voices here, as if the walls and ceilings and floors had been wiped clean of the residual suffering that was allowed to accumulate like dust in the corners and edges of rooms in ordinary homes. And except for one time early on, when one of the showerheads started to weep, he found the fixtures to be fairly placid and composed, as if they, too, had been sedated. When he did hear voices, they were identifiably human.

Usually when things talked, he just blocked his ears and tried not to listen. It had never occurred to him to ask them questions. Of course, the shoe hadn’t answered. Maybe it thought the question was stupid. Maybe stuff stopped talking to you when you asked too many stupid questions, just like he stopped talking to Dr. Melanie, or in group when everyone just sat there in silence. Maybe if he asked more stupid questions, all the things would stop talking completely. That would be excellent. He rolled up the paper and put it back in his pocket.

Face a blank wall. Pretend the wall is a mirror. Say good morning to the toilet. Thank it for taking all your shit. Pretend you are very old. Move at half speed. Hug yourself and say I love you. Repeat until it’s true. Walk like you’re happy. Change directions. Be a pussy. Purr. Lick your beautiful fur. Regard the world upside down. Make eye contact with your meds before you swallow them. Ask them, “Are you for real?” Do everything backward. Smile at someone you don’t like. If they smile back, give yourself a point. Lie on your back on the floor and listen. Feel free to sing along.

She tried to fling open the door in a triumphant gesture of welcome, but the door got jammed on a bag of recycling. She pushed harder, shoving it open enough so she could lead Benny into the kitchen,

“There’s no space for me in this house!” “I’ll get rid of it, I promise. It’s just temporary.” “Bullshit,” he said. He gave the bag another kick, and the fight went out of him. “I seriously doubt that.” He stood there, contemplating the great heaps of trash bags that lined the room, and then his gaze traveled to the blinking, humming array, in the midst of which sat Annabelle. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He took a deep breath, held it, and started counting.

It was a tool he’d learned in his coaching group. The counselor had given them blank Coping Cards. On one side they were supposed to write a list of the triggers that made them feel mad or sad or upset, and on the back side they wrote down strategies for coping with their feelings. The trigger side had five lines on it, so he had written: the scissors the shower the pane of glass the Christmas ornament Dr. Melanie’s toys His coach looked at his list, and asked him to be more specific and describe the moments when he felt triggered, and so he added to each one: the scissors when they wanted to stab the shower when it cries from its head the pane of glass when it killed the bird the Christmas ornament when I stepped on it in the hallway Dr. M’s toys when they start to remember The coach sat down with him then, and gave him a new card and told him to try thinking of more general things this time, not specific objects, but situations that make him mad or sad or upset, and so he thought for a while, and he said, “You mean like when my mom puts stuff in my room or won’t take out the trash even when I remind her?” And the coach said, “Exactly,” and so he wrote that down. And then the coach said, “Great, now close your eyes. How does it make you feel when your mom puts stuff in your room?” And he closed his eyes, and rocked back and forth, and said, “It makes me feel like there’s this huge dark comet, made of the densest, heaviest matter in the universe, coming right at me really,...

A repository housing the bound testimony of mankind’s mortal fears and immortal yearnings ought to be a solid, reassuring sort of place—harmonious and reliably symmetrical, built in such a way as to make even the most disquieted patron feel safe and secure. But architects and city planners, concerned with ensuring their own immortality, have other ideas. They see the Library as a legacy project, and books as mere props, a motley assortment of mismatched objects that mar the clean lines of their design aesthetic. They are no friends to books.

I know what I was feeling at that moment about Annabelle. Why don’t you tell them that? Because the truth is that I was ashamed of her. I hated her. I wanted her to disappear—oh, shit, just say it—I wanted her to die. Why did it have to be my Dad who got killed? That’s what I was thinking. At least my dad was cool and a musician, and we had all these interests in common, like jazz and outer space, and we used to do stuff together like eat breakfast and watch old TV shows about interplanetary travel on YouTube, and when he picked me up after school, I was proud of him. I loved my dad. I loved him like crazy, and he was dead. And there was my mom, sitting in the principal’s waiting room where everyone could see her, looking like a total loser, and this voice in my head kept saying, Why couldn’t it have been you? And it wasn’t just some random voice who was saying this, either. It was my voice. It was me.

this notion of a slot. That a slot is a thing, we cannot deny, however it is a thing defined entirely by lack, by an absence of form, by negative space, by its own emptiness. We know vat it isn’t, but how can we truly know vat it is? How can we tell ze difference between a slot and, say, a slit? Is a slit slimmer than a slot, and therefore lacking less? If it lacks less, does it vant more? And if so, how can we know if this slot or slit vants books and not bottles?”

And what about the troublesome matter of more? For most humans throughout history, “more” wasn’t even an option. “Enough” was the goal and was, by definition, enough. The Industrial Revolution changed all that, and by the early 1900s, American factories were pumping out more goods than ever before, while the newly empowered advertising industry used its forked tongue to convert citizens into consumers. But even as this new economy boomed, there were signs that growth was slowing, and these same questions began to niggle in the minds of American industrialists. What makes a person want so much, and is there a limit to the desire for more? Or, put another way, is there a point of saturation at which the American consumer would have enough, leading to the collapse of the market?

that wants are almost insatiable; that one want satisfied makes way for another. The conclusion is that economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied. (emphasis added)

He listened to the small, quick sounds of the typing lady’s fingers. Earlier, her tapping had sounded like raindrops, but now it sounded more like a flock of starlings lifting from a wheat field and then settling again, blending back into the Library’s ambient hush. Or maybe not starlings. Maybe waves. Maybe the starlings were changing into waves, washing up on the sand and tickling all the pebbles and tiny broken shells, before receding again. In and out, waves and starlings, the tapping of fingers on a keyboard, the rustle of a turning page, the exhalations of the stars, punctuated by an occasional snore—Benny heard all these sounds, rising and falling, and he knew, too, that they, like the voices he heard, were always there, and would always be there, coming and going, somewhere in the background.

“It’s not an it,” she said. “It’s a they. They’re a ferret. A nonbinary, gender-fluid ferret, so don’t let them hear you calling them a rat. They hate that.” “I’m sorry,” Benny said. “I didn’t mean it.” And because he wanted to make up for drooling and for being rude and for looking at her chest, he asked, “Do they have a name?” “Of course they do,” the girl said over her shoulder. “Their name is TAZ.”

Just the profile and a little dip of cleavage, which, on this girl, functioned like a pocket in which to tuck a pet. The ferret looked smug. They also looked like they knew exactly what Benny was up to.

She nodded and held out her hand. The skin on her fingers was stained with paint, and her fingernails were bitten down and ragged. “You’re shivering,” she said. “And hyperventilating. Do you mind if I touch you?” He shook his head, but he couldn’t stop himself from flinching when she laid her hand on his chest. Under the soft pressure of her palm, he could feel his heart, like a bird, a trapped thing, battering itself against glass. She left her hand there, a small, warm weight, until the wild fluttering slowed and the shivering stopped and he started breathing normally, and then she gave his chest a little push. When she pulled her hand away again, it was cupped, like she was holding something. She placed her other hand on top to keep it from flying away, then she held her hands out and opened them to show him. He heard a pulsing sound, soft and wet and quickly rhythmic, and he looked down and saw. Cupped in her paint-stained hands was his wild, beating heart. “Here,” she said, offering it back to him. “I think I like you, Benny Oh.” BENNY She didn’t really give me back my heart, but that’s what it felt like, like my heart had flown out of my body and now it was lying all naked and raw in her hands, beating like crazy, and even though she was offering to return it to me, it didn’t really want to come home. My heart was happy, cupped in her hands. It wanted to stay there forever.

“What do you think?” I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to think or what to say. He stood there quietly. He wasn’t trying to be comic or coquettish. He was just waiting for my answer. His big round head gleamed like polished mahogany. He was wearing the worn, gray cotton work outfit of a monk, which did not match the style of the tiara at all, and so it sat there, clamped on his head, glittering and casting irritable flecks of light on his skin. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t. The gaudy, ornate filigree that I’d admired so much in the department store looked tacky on his head, and the Swarovski crystals and seed pearls looked cheap, even though they weren’t.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think it suits me.” He took off the headband and held it out to me. “Here,” he said. “You put it on.” I did what he said. The thin metal band slid down behind my ears, pinching my head on either side. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I felt so ashamed. “Yes,” he said, stepping back. “It suits you. It is very cute.” “Thank you,” I whispered.

Crows are greedy. They like shiny, gaudy things, just like young girls, and my crow had very classy taste! This was my first understanding. But after I’d been at the temple for several years, I came to understand that this crow was a bodhisattva who had taken pity on me, trapped as I was by my attachments and desires, living my cramped, claustrophobic life. The bodhisattva had taken the form of a crow in order to help me wake up to the vast, boundless Emptiness of all things. So this is why I am very grateful to my wise Teacher Crow, and why I am grateful to that Swarovski crystal tiara headband, for being so beautiful.

People don’t come naturally to me, and I’ve had to study and practice, like when you’re first learning to read and have to sound out the syllables. I have to learn people phonetically and then memorize them by rote. Objects are easier because they tell it straight up. That’s one of the differences between people and things. Things don’t lie or tease or fool around. They don’t hide their feelings. You can tell when a thing is happy or sad or bored or mad. Especially mad. Oh, yeah, when a thing is pissed off, it lets you know it. It cuts you, or pinches you, or suddenly stops working. It slips from your fingers and breaks, or simply disappears—like, totally vanishes—and no matter how hard you look for it, you can’t find it.

❗️

These are things that Benny could not have known, things that only we can tell you, because we are a book and Benny is just a boy. He couldn’t read the typing lady’s mind or access her thoughts. He was aware only of the robotic commotion inside his own mind.

but I’m not any of those things. I’m just crazy.” Slavoj snorted. “Nonsense! How vould you know? Hef you ever tried composing a poem? Hef you tried contemplating a philosophical question, or leading a revolution?” “No.” “Vell, there you go. You cannot possibly know since you hef never tried, so I suggest you try immediately. You must start small.

“Bah!” the Bottleman said. “It is our human nature to know questions. For example, you asked me if I hear woices. Why?”

“To emptiness!” He tossed back the shot in a single swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Never be afraid of not knowing, young man. Not knowing is ze practice of poets and sages.”

“We have to wake up from this ideological opium dream we call life!”

Even as the Blue Marble was miniaturizing your conception of Earth, it was inflating your sense of importance in relation to it, endowing you a godlike perspective and agency. The image caused, in other words, a derangement of scale, from which you people still suffer. As your anxiety about the disastrous effects of your behavior on the biosphere grows, you console yourself with the thought that by changing a light bulb or recycling a bottle or choosing paper instead of plastic, you can save the planet.

People are born from the womb of the world with different sensitivities, and the world needs every single one of you to experience it fully, so that it might be fully experienced. If even one person were left out, the world would be diminished. And he said you don’t have to worry about being creative. The world is creative, endlessly so, and its generative nature is part of who you are. The world has given you the eyes to see the beauty of its mountains and rivers, and the ears to hear the music of its wind and sea, and the voice you need to tell it. We books are evidence that this is so. We are here to help you.

She placed the globe down in front of her workstation with the others. It didn’t fit in. All the other globes were cheerful and kitschy and mass-produced, and this one, so bleak and beautifully handcrafted, made all her other little worlds look cheap and foolish.