National Nothing Day finally arrived and the celebration began. Citizens from Peking to Kalamazoo lined up and awaited for something, anything, but there was nothing. Suddenly, the sky shook, thunder bellowed, and lightning bolts were hurled from the sky. Zeus bellowed, “Those humans have done it again. A holiday to celebrate absolutely nothing! People around the world scattered, seeking sanctuary.
Furious, Zeus called his brother Neptune and commanded him to stir the oceans into giant tsunamis, sucking every land and sea creature to its very depths. He ordered Hades to spray geysers of molten lava up through the earth’s crevices in a fiery display. He pounded his fist on the earth’s crust, cracking it into a thousand earthquakes felt around the world.
After the chaos, there was silence. A slow and soft murmuring was heard as survivors found one another. “Are you alive?” “Can I help you?” People from Peking to Kalamazoo helped each other find their loved ones. Nations around the globe cooperated in an unprecedented international effort to rebuild together, stone by stone. Although the holiday was never recognized again, National Nothing Day was something after all.
Carol Van Deusen, from Avon, CT, is an English teacher and aspiring writer. She's a working mother of three married to her husband Greg, also a writer. Carol is the captain of a USTA tennis team called Ground Strokes.
© 2008 Carol Van Deusen. Original for CCF (Van Deusen grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).
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