“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
He thought for a moment. “Nothing,” he said.
She put her glass down too hard. “I don’t think this is working. I feel like I’m just an afterthought with you.”
“Well,” he said. “Every thought comes after some other thought, so technically-”
“You just said you weren’t thinking about anything.”
He panicked.
“Er. No, I was thinking about nothing,” he said. “It’s quite different. I mean when you think about it, nothing is really something. It’s terrifying. There’s nothing about nothing that would make me think about you after it. You’re very different from… nothing.”
They both knew it was over. They moved on. Eventually, she found someone who could keep himself distracted from nothing, and he found someone with whom he had nothing in common.
The total quantity of happiness in the universe increased. And that, as they say, is really something.
