Sometimes, it’s not what’s in front of us that stirs the emotions. It’s what’s absent. Like, an empty chair at Christmas lunch, or a paddock without a shred of grass, just windswept dust licking the surface of the blank hills for as far as the eye can see. If you’ve ever been in such a place, you will know that every sense of your being wants to escape. Your soul senses the death. You may even be chased by skeletal cows. The snow has been thin on the ground this year, hiding in the high peaks. Its absence has been filled by early blooming wattle, jonquils, magpies building nests, and flock after flock of galahs, corellas, white, and yellow-tailed black cockatoos preparing for the breeding season. The cloud I call The Snake has rarely formed in the range outside my window. Winter barely arrived and spring is here, at least according to nature.
I remember reading an essay by Charlotte Wood while she was writing her Booker Prize shortlisted novel Stone Yard Devotional. In it, she spoke about how she was playing with absence and resisting the need to explain. If you’ve read this novel, you’ll know that Wood withheld a great deal of information about the protagonist, and that this absence not only opened up a sense of mystery, but also forced us to hone in on the tiny details of the present. Similarly, Joan Didion, who picked through Ernest Hemingway with a fine-toothed comb, once observed that much of the power in his writing lay in what he withheld.
Withholding information leaves somewhat of a blank canvas for imaginations to run wild, which is one of the joys of reading. Presence and absence can be played with like opposing forces on a balance-scale. Both are equally as powerful, and if you consider it from the perspective of Jean-Paul Sartre, they are intrinsically linked, in that absence, too, has a presence. We feel absence, often quite intensely. And we need absences in which to make space for the new.
This came to mind recently when I was introduced to the internet’s Backrooms—a maze of about 600-million square miles of empty basement spaces painted, wallpapered, and carpeted in shades that vary little either side of mustard yellow. The rooms are lit by buzzing fluorescent lights, stink of old moist carpet; in each, an opening that hints at the vastness of this eerie liminal cavity. The Backrooms are meant to unsettle us. It’s very David Lynch. And this somewhat blank mustard-yellow canvas has become a ginormous communal creative act.
I’m not sure what you’ll find should you venture into the Backrooms. It may be a one-legged pirate, or a room crammed full of identical sofas. To be truthful, I got a little bored in there. As much as people tried, I didn’t find anything as creepy as the very first unassuming post that introduced us to the idea. I’ve been thinking about why that is and I suspect it has to do with absence. The Backrooms is best when you don’t know what’s lurking around the corner.
Anyone can engage in the Backrooms, in much the same way anyone can jump onboard a meme bandwagon. The Backrooms is what devotees call a ‘liminal space’, where nothing makes sense and unease is the name of the game. It doesn’t live at any address. You may come across it anywhere on the internet, from TikTok to YouTube. But to truly understand the Backrooms, you need to venture back seven years to the anonymous 4chan post that started it all. It was born inside a paranormal thread asking users to post disquieting images that felt ‘off’. Among the images emerged the wholly yellow photo, copied from elsewhere on the internet and captioned by an anonymous user, quite possibly an American writer known as August.
I’ve been thinking about this balance between absence and presence, and I doubt the Backrooms would have lived another day without its caption. The two combined acted like a writing prompt that inspired a movement. The caption described the Backrooms as I did earlier, giving it its name and ending with:
“God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.”
Cue years of internet entertainment and even a movie that debuted earlier this year with a planned sequel.
I find communal creativity wonderfully invigorating, and it’s inspiring to see how an unassuming post can inspire years of storytelling to the point where a Gen-Xer like myself, who dallies little in social media, now understands its existence. If there’s any sign this internet trend has run its course, it’s exactly that!
An announcement
Speaking of absence, I now announce one of my own. This month marks the end of Season 2026 of Mind Flexing. I’d like to thank every single one of you who has stopped by and joined me on this journey. Your presence is very much felt, and I appreciate it immensely.
I’ve taken on a work contract that will consume me over the next couple of months, and time and experience have taught me that the lead up to Christmas and the January school holidays are write-offs with young children, so I look forward to rejoining you all as we enter February in 2027. Gosh, that sounds so far away now that I write it, but feels so near when I consider all that must be done in that time. And I promise you that behind the scenes there will be a lot of writing.
I won’t be completely absent, neither. On the other side of the screen, I’ll be here reading and checking in on you all in this wonderful writers’ community we have forged on Substack. You know who you all are, and I expect you to keep me entertained in the coming months.
So it is not goodbye, but rather, until next time.
Thank you for Mind Flexing with me. If you enjoyed this essay, please subscribe on Substack or your favourite podcast app, comment, click the ❤️ button, or share it with someone who would appreciate it. I’ll be back in February 2027. Until then, keep 💪
