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Daniel looked at the three white stones lining the black slab, highlights on the old grave. The little boy, worried he put his stone too close to the edge, fussed with it, trying to place it closer to his mom’s. But his shoes squelched under his shifting weight, the mud soaking in down to his socks, so he just left it as it was. The little rock stuck out from the others on his grandfather’s grave. His mom nudged his arm a little, and his uncle helped him out, nudging the stone closer to the center, to help keep it safe.
His uncle Ben had once told him a story, which Daniel remembered just then, about how he and his wife had found the older Daniel's map. It had been a week after his uncle had moved back into the old family home, and was showing it around to aunt Erica. His uncle knew the house like the back of his hand, but paused when finding the door he had forgotten existed. An old door, but air tight, which did its best to keep its space in the house away from the rest. Erica noticed his hesitation, though they had not known each other long. Grabbing the handle with him, she said ‘lets go in together’.
But when they opened the door an avalanche of everything came spilling out, toppling them both over, boxes and clothing and papers burying them alive. They laid there for a second, just listening to each other's heart beat. But after a good moment, they pulled themselves up from the mess. Uncle Ben had found himself blind, as something had fallen on his head, over his eyes! A big sheet of paper, with old creases raising lines on the parchment. Erica pulled it off him, and found a map. She asked Ben aloud whether he wanted her reading it, but she didn’t need to hear his answer to know he trusted her with his things. After holding it up to the light - the studio was crowded, small walls closing in further with everything in it, blocking out most natural light- she told him that it was an old Russian map of the world, with Советский Союз stretched over a bright red spot standing out against the paler colors of Eurasia and the rest of the world, a with a little yellow star to mark it special. But the real highlight of the map, she told, was over in North America, where the state lines of New Jersey were drawn in a blank blue country. Someone had found the state's hidden border with sharpie, as if they knew it by heart. Then under it, with stiff letters all lined up like soldiers, was the name Rosalie. Then under that was a little epigraph, ‘to never move again.’ Ben smiled, and reached for her hand. The calluses he had started to grow met hers, and they left to go clean the dust off themselves. But the little room was like a cave of wonders, the outlines of his fathers old life, and they found themselves cleaning the place up in years to come.
Of course, little Daniel didn’t hear the story in its complexity. He just knew about the hidden map in that little room, and how his uncle and aunt now showcased it proudly on their mantel piece. But he still liked the story. It gave him something of his grandfather, the older Daniel being someone he could never know for himself. Wiping under his nose, and readjust the book under his arm, he sighed and looked to the neighbor's grave. With its matching white rocks laid out on the black slab, the couple laid together. He also wished he knew grandma Rosalie better, but he had her books to keep him company. His mother read them to him every night, and boasted that his grandmother had co-wrote with all the greats. It was something to live up to.
His mother stepped closer to him, to join him in the watch. Looking up at his mom, he noticed her rainbow shirt. It was the tie dye project he had made for Mother's Day. She still wore it proudly, despite his shoddy craftsmanship. It poked out from her heavy blue coat. His uncle Ben also had on a dark blue coat, and clinged to it vehemently to keep from the cold. It seemed to run in their family in fact, as the little Daniel matched with them. They were a little blue family, standing next to the family graves.
Daniel swallowed, throat dry. He asked his mom a question. Little Daniel asked where his grandparents went. It made him suddenly nervous.
His mom tilted her head towards him in almost surprise, and then smiled, looking up to take in the sky. Then, she crouched down to him, and cupped her hands into a bowl.
“Daniel, do you see what I'm holding?” she asked. Leaning in, Daniel tried to imagine what she was trying to teach him. But then he looked, and saw nothing.
“Yes.” She confirmed, when he told her. “There is nothing. This is just a little bit of the nothing in the world, which is filled to the brim with things that don’t exist, that can’t live or die or grow.” His uncle half smiled at that, and half frowned.
“Is that where Grandma and Grandpa are?” he asked, even more scared than before. But she just laughed, and his uncle chucked, and Daniel just felt stupid.
“Oh honey no...” She gave him a kind smile, then continued on. “In the great nothingness of the world, there rests a place like the white of a canvas. It is blank, and yet all the world is built from it, spilling out.” She uncupped her hands, holding them out in the air, and then held him in embrace. “That's where Grandma and Grandpa are, honey, they’re making the world.”