He was always careful to walk only on the cracks between the cobblestones. He was never quite sure if anything existed, and he was terrified that he might stop perceiving the stones as he walked on them. If he was walking on nothing, he reasoned, then he had nothing to worry about. How far can you fall from nothing?

He wasn’t always this way, he knew. At least as much as one can know from shaky memories.

Nowhere to fall. Nowhere to go. Going Nowhere on the vast network of nothings in the city.

He remembered a little house, a little room with a fireplace. He used to feel the warmth and did not shudder even though it might not have been real. A little house, a little fire, and his little son.

It was his son who made him realize he had no proof of anything. He was an obstinate little boy, always wanting to know the how and why. But are you sure? He would ask. And oh, how sure he had been. He had been able to let forth a handsome, resounding “Yes!”

He never appreciated his surety in those days, of course. What he wouldn’t give for that now. But one day his little son had asked how he knew the sun existed, and how he knew it was hot and brilliant, and what if everyone else thought it cold and purple? And this was all very fascinating in his immature, inquisitive mind, but in his father’s mind it had reached its deadly and inevitable conclusion.

He didn’t know! He had been sunbathing for years in its cold and unreal light, and he didn’t know! And his little son’s smile? How did he know it wasn’t all cruel fangs mocking him? And he had run out into the cold grey streets to walk along the nothingness, searching for a place so uncertain as to be safe.

He did not admire his son for this revelation. In one of the great philosophers it would have been the highest and most exquisite wisdom, but from his little son it was only cruel and careless malice. He wondered where his little son was now, amused himself for a moment with the image with a little child-chubby wanderer, but realized he was being ridiculous. There was absolutely no evidence that the little executioner had ever existed in the first place.

He admired the pedestrians, rushing from place to place in their predestined grooves. How sublime it must be, to rush from place to place, so certain that future existed that you would rush eagerly towards it! He wished he could have a task so essential that the cobblestones themselves would be sure to exist just so you could complete it. What pride they must have! What handsome and resolute faces! He wished he had a preordained groove. Somewhere he belonged, somewhere certain so he wouldn’t have to search for the uncertain place.

He made a tricky turn, placing one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker over the thin black lines. Some of the pedestrians looked at him oddly. He hoped he didn’t worry them too much. He hoped he didn’t make them think, make them question everything they knew.

Night was falling, bit by bit, slowly as if to torture him. Maybe it was to torture him. How could he fathom the minds behind this illusory world?

He swerved a bit to avoid upsetting the destiny of a pedestrian, and then swayed violently, trying to regain his balance. It was no use, his left foot tripped out to catch him and landed solidly on the cobblestone.

A violent surge of nausea overtook him. He was cold and weak and shaking and cold sweat ran from his forehead but it looked like sweat and for all he knew it could have been his lifeblood draining away. He trembled like a man on his last legs, swaying like a drunken leaf, like he was going to fall-

And where was the nothing where where? And the cobblestones dug into his knees but how did he know that they were more than perception? How did he know he wouldn’t start perceiving them differently, and what if they turned to skulls like eggshells, turned to nothing beneath his feet and would he fall forever?

Cogito ergo sum, but stones don’t think and air doesn’t think and I can’t breath and what are they all thinking? Think loudly so I can hear you and know that you are there! He hugged his bony knees, have to make a little ball of certain, a little ball of real, a little ball of fire and my little son…

And what if one of the pedestrians, gazing into the eternal and following his path were to trip over him? What if he were to be jolted into cruel and scientific reality and look up at the sky, only to see the awful eye of God, which is empty and the color of my little son’s despair because there is no God!

He had to escape, he had to save the poor, innocent demigods that were the pedestrians. He gathered the strength to stand and ran quickly across the sidewalk as if it were on fire. He skidded into an alleyway and collapsed, allowing his breath to return to him. This was the safe time, the minutes between sunlight and streetlamps, the banes of his existence. He couldn’t see anything, anything to disbelieve. He cried because he was safe, and this was not a thing which happened very often.

As the streetlight just down the road lit, he prepared himself to resume his wandering. In the half-light, the dirt of the ground seemed like a safe abyss still, but the worn, shiny edges of a tarnished penny gleamed dully. He tentatively touched it, reflexively jerked his hand back, then picked it up. It was slightly warm, and had a pleasant weight to it. He tentatively tasted it. It tasted like the tang of blood, and smelled like seawater. It clinked softly when he flicked it.

And suddenly let there be light the streetlight directly above him flickered into life. He could see every rut, every grain of dirt before him in the alley.

And the world was so heartbreakingly real.

That night he slept soundly, and felt safe although he slept on the streets. He simply lay down in the alley and slept, instead of having to search the whole city for a snatch of sleep in the relative peace under a shattered streetlight. As suddenly as his solipsistic revelation had overtaken him, it was gone. It wasn’t that he’d found proof, that he was absolutely certain that he was putting his feet down on solid rock. It wasn’t that he had suspended disbelief. But now he did not preoccupy himself with walking; he let his feet fall where they may. What were these aching philosophies against the perfect roundness of the penny?

In the morning he rose, and clutching the penny so it bit believably into his palm he ventured out onto the sidewalk. He confidently strode down the street, free of even the least bit of fear.

He passed a little girl selling carnations out of a basket. He passed the earliest of the pedestrians, and almost laughed with delight because he was one of them now.

He stopped by a construction site to watch the men swarming around the foundations like ants. What a wonderful job, to create! He looked forward to coming back in a few days to see the building taking shape. He knew it would still be there!

A construction manager called out to him, “Hey, buddy, need a job?”

And why not? Why not spend his days working for something that would stand here for decades? He could use a little money!

And it was a glorious job. The sparks from the torches burned his skin and the heavy bricks scraped his hands and the workers’ strong black coffee burned his throat, and he could feel all of this and had no doubt he would come to work and feel it again tomorrow, just the same as today. He walked to work in the mornings (he still slept in the alleyway) and he knew where he was going, a pilgrim like the pedestrians. He used his first paycheck to buy a haircut and a suit, so he could jauntily walk down the streets in pride.

One day as he was walking around, just to feel the rough cobblestones beneath his feet, he saw a beggar with his hat upturned. The bottom of the hat had a thin layer of small coins. The penny had brought him so much happiness and success, and he suddenly wished for that grimy beggar to know that feeling of worthiness and certainty as well. He jauntily flipped the penny into the beggar’s cap, admiring the way it caught the light as it turned, and its reassuring clink as it landed in the cap. He was vaguely disturbed because the beggar offered no thanks or even acknowledgement, but continued on his way.

And as he walked, the doubts struck again. What sort of fool was he, to base all his philosophies on a penny? Why did he work, when the money could turn to leaves as he spent it, when the building could disappear or turn to a palace of ice the next day? To quiet these thoughts, he began stepping on the nothing cracks every other step. Just to the end of this road, he said, if I walk just this way to the end of the road I won’t have to doubt anymore.

But as he reached the end of the road, it only became worse. The suit jacket chafed and confined him, it was a straightjacket confining him and what if he couldn’t move and couldn’t breath and hot wool suffocation rip it off throw it off get away from me you’ll be the death of me help and step onto the darkness like he used to and walk to the uncertain place-

Yes, now his rationality returned. How credulous he’d been. No, here was the safe walking life, nowhere to fall but up.

Who was to say he couldn’t fall up? Who was to say he couldn’t fall up through an eternity of starless sky, like the nothing beneath the hallucinated cobblestones? Who was to say there was anywhere safe and nowhere to go and no Nothing left and he needed that penny back so he could believe! There was no way to turn back without stepping on the cobblestones. He had to walk around the block to turn, and then the long blocks back to the beggar. He walked as fast as he could without overbalancing or upsetting anyone, hoping against all odds that he hadn’t imagined the beggar or the penny.

The beggar was still sitting there (if he had been sitting there before, if his senses could be trusted), hat now firmly on his head to shield against the drizzle that had started.

“Penny!” he barked.

The beggar stared into the distance.

“Penny!” he screamed again.

The beggar looked unfocusedly up at him. “Wha-?” he slurred.

“I gave you my penny my precious real penny and where did it go inside your hat?”

“Don’ got pennies. If I got pennies wouldn’t ask suit-men like you fer more, would I?”

“I gave you my penny! Give it back, it’s mine please god mine!”

“Lunatic suit-man! Spent it!” The beggar waved a bottle of gin loosely.

He grabbed the beggar by the collar, hauling him up and hurling him against a wall.

“My penny! You have it so give it to me damn it I don’t want to be afraid of the fire!”

He slammed him against the wall again, again and again and again but where had his penny gone. Finally the beggar stopped moving (no penny god I need it) and what had he done? He picked up the bottle of gin from where it had fallen and took a swig. It burned his throat like the hot coffee but it hurt because he didn’t know if it burned or not.

He took another swig because he hated it and what had he done to the beggar? What kind of horrible inhuman was he? And another and another and again and he couldn’t tell if the road was straight. He liked the way it moved uncertainly beneath him.

This was the uncertain place!