Pot Top
by Emily Woodworth
I am sad. The pot is empty. I know the pot is empty. The pot knows the pot is empty. I lift the lid and look inside, and I see that there is nothing there, because the pot is empty. I put the lid down, and tell myself that the pot is empty.
⦿
I call Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The cat is both alive and dead, he says.
There’s no cat involved here, Neil. We’re talking about a pot.
The cup is neither half full, nor half empty. It is always full of something, whether in a liquid or gaseous state, unless it is in a vacuum. Is the cup in a vacuum?
It’s a pot, Neil. Like for spaghetti.
The principles of physics still apply.
It’s not in a vacuum.
Then it’s full.
Angry, I hang up on Neil deGrasse Tyson and lift the lid of the pot again. It’s empty, still.
⦿
A watched pot never boils, says my friend.
My friend sits in the corner with a coloring book for adults that is supposed to relieve anxiety. They only have red crayons, and they don’t draw in the lines. They slash at the page in gestures of violence. Stressed backward is desserts.
There’s nothing to boil. The pot is empty, I say, setting the lid down. I know they know the pot is empty.
They slash at the page with their red crayons, three per fist. Slash, slash, slash (x3).
You should call Bob Ross, they say.
⦿
I call Bob Ross. I am distressed to find that he is dead. Deceased. Finito. May his infinite hair rest in peace.
The fact remains: the pot is empty. I know the pot is empty. The pot knows the pot is empty. The pot knows that I am empty. Am I empty?
⦿
You should call Doctor Phil, says my friend. They are tearing the pages of the adult coloring book into triangles, and then building those triangles into pyramids.
I pick up my cell phone to dial, but there is a knock at the door. It is Doctor Phil. It is Doctor Phil complete with a full camera crew and studio audience. Did my friend call him? Everyone crowds into our apartment, and Doctor Phil instructs me to lie down on the couch. The couch is really a loveseat and it’s too small, so my feet stick off the end and hang precariously out in space.
The studio audience has to sit crisscross applesauce on the floor, and I’m worried they are uncomfortable, but Doctor Phil says I need to focus on myself right now. I wait for the crew to get Phil mic’d up. The boom guy hits the walls with the pole, leaving large gashes that spurt blood. No one bothers cleaning up.
⦿
My friend is eating the triangular pieces of paper now, stabbing the fragments with a fork made for babies and dipping them in something red. My friend might be a cannibal. I worry what Doctor Phil might think.
⦿
I understand the pot is empty, says Doctor Phil at last.
The pot is empty, I concur.
The pot is empty. He looks down at a notepad, but even upside down and backward I can tell it is blank. He stares at the blankness. The audience holds their breath, collectively, their lungs full, collectively, unempty.
Doctor Phil says, What do you have to say about that?
My friend glares at me from their corner. Stab, stab, stab. The studio audience breathes out, a humid breeze on my cheek.
Why is the pot empty? asks Doctor Phil. My friend’s eyes widen. Blink, blink, blink.
Neil deGrasse Tyson said it was full, I say, a hand to my moist cheek.
Is the pot full? asks Doctor Phil.
Maybe. The studio audience laughs.
It’s yes or no. It’s common sense. When you lift up the lid, what do you see?
Nothing. Or, the bottom and sides of the pot. It’s empty. Unfull.
So, the pot is full of emptiness.
Yes.
Yes?
That doesn’t make sense.
What doesn’t?
The studio audience stares at me.
How could it be full of emptiness?
When did you realize you were the pot?
I’m not the pot! I say. I am alarmed.
⦿
My body deflates on the couch. My organs go tissue-paper-thin. My spine connects with my sternum. I am emptying myself of all volume. My insides are vacuumed down until finally I am flat skin on a couch. Only my eyeballs haven’t flattened and they feel very dry. Doctor Phil has stopped talking.
My friend finishes eating their paper triangles. They pick their way through the aubergine studio audience and gingerly peel me from the fabric. I am light now. If the studio audience breathed out, I’d snap in the breeze. My friend folds me in half, then in half again and places me in an envelope like Flat Stanley. Doom backward is mood.
Goodbye, they say, tenderly, and I can feel the movement of a red crayon tickling my ribs and thighs as they inscribe an address, the wet of their saliva as they seal me in.
⦿
It is dark in the envelope. The envelope is not empty. I am empty. Is the pot still empty?
⦿
I travel for a long time. I travel for a short time. I travel through a wormhole and a time-warp and a black hole and I emit time, until finally someone opens the envelope and unfolds me, taking care with my creases, taking care not to rip me. It is Bob Ross. I am delighted.
Bob Ross coats me with a little paste and sticks me to a blank canvas. He picks up his palette. It is empty. Bob backward is bob.
You stay there while I go get some paint. We can make you some nice little friends.
He disappears into the dark of his studio, leaving his infinite hair behind, floating in space.
Emily Woodworth's writing has appeared in Under the Sun, Broad Street, Crannóg Magazine, Inkwell Journal, and others. She received an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Anton Chekov Prize for Very Short Fiction (New Flash Fiction Review), a Notable Mention in Best American Essays 2018 (ed. Hilton Als), and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She holds an MFA in Writing from CalArts.
