Sometimes I think about negative space which is not nothing, but no thing. It is a presence of an absence, every subtraction and deletion from the world. Not nothing, but no thing in the way negative integers on a number line are not nothing but are a gradient of all that is missing. Sometimes it seems to me that I can perceive the negative spaces in this world, but only briefly; it would be unbearable if it were constant or even frequent.

I want to tell you a thing: for the centenary anniversary of the battle of the Somme, someone had organised hundreds of young men to dress as conscripts and congregate outside train stations or on platforms, in squares and parks. They marched, boarded buses, leant against railings, stood or sat, smoked, and seemed to be waiting for something. To bemused passers by they sometimes handed out cards bearing the name of a real person, the one they were meant to represent, with the relevant dates and fates. They would not accept the cards back, and did not speak unless to say ‘I am dead’.

At some point the men began to sing ‘We’re here because we’re here’ which I understand was a popular song for soldiers in that time. Those are the only words in the song and are sung over and over to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, a funny sort of detail. They sang until they reached what was to be the final line and then the men howled the final here and it was the sound of something being torn open. Then silence.

I am telling you this story because this is what I mean by a negative space, someone had found a way to make it manifest to even the most oblivious people, and when it happened it was the sound was something being torn open.

I am telling you this story because the negative spaces of every lost thing are always present; you cannot have a bowl without its hollow. The world is half made of this absence.