ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experience of not having something or someone important, and the spaces that this leaves behind. Emptiness is a subjective awareness of being without: of missing something or someone that would have provided meaningful substance. This form of nothing is defined by its external matter: surroundings, containers, shells and residue that remain outside its boundaries. Identifying five different types of emptiness, we see how some are produced by acts of commission (the vacuum, black hole and nuclear hole), while others are omissively formed (the void and liminal gap). This is explored through illustrative stories about infertility and pregnancy loss, bodily decline, giving up addiction and living alone. Finally, the chapter considers the significance of objects that fill empty space, in the form of replacements, alternatives, substitutes and memorials.
