The other day I was helping Ned take the cargo box off his old pickup truck. It contained an accumulation of several years worth of auto parts. We had to unload it before we could separate the box from the truck. Fools for work that we are, we both reached in and got an armful of greasy metal.

Ned asked, "Where are we going to put this?"

I pointed with my chin into the empty future art studio and said, "Let's put it here for now."

Time stopped. Dust motes hung still in the air. I realized at that moment that I had just identified a new category of space and time -- the Herefornow. As in, "Let's put it Herefornow." We were inaugurating a material purgatory -- a place from which objects would seldom return. It is rare that, in the course of ordinary existence, one encounters a new metaphysical truth.

The Herefornow is a physical space where we put things we no longer care about. If we were mindful we would throw them away immediately, but we are unwilling to let go of them. Objects may only leave a Herefornow when they go to the dump, the thrift store, or the table at the garage sale. If a Herefornow were to burn up, the owner of it would not be able to state what it had held. This is a fact.

A Herefornow can be a garage, an attic, a basement, the back seat of a car, a purse or pocket, a closet, a shed, or rented storage. One couple I know dedicated their entire house as a Herefornow. They had narrow paths that led from room to room. It was all booty from garage sales. The bottom layers were composting. Other layers festered with mold. Small creatures inhabited portions of it as though it was some sort of urban nature preserve. The occupants, like rats, wandered the paths all their lives in a maze of their own devising.

People who have a Herefornow never see it. Whenever their eyes rove past it, the retinal image goes black. Nothing shows. When some object has fulfilled its usefulness, it is taken loosely in hand. The owner sidles over to the Herefornow with an absent expression and places the object on the pile. If you were to ask at that moment, "What are you doing?", the reply might be, "Who? Me? Nothing! I mean . . . I forget! Isn't that odd?"

You try hard and focus on the event horizon of a Herefornow, and it appears to be a blur made up of tweed cloth, edges of paper, vague wire shapes, cardboard and fog. A person walking into one can be seen only dimly from the outside. They appear small and indistinct and they cannot hear your voice. Cats know that to sleep in them is to be safe from dogs, raccoons and owls. Time passes slowly, if at all, and you look up suddenly, startled to see a shaft of light from a window and to remember your life outside.

A Herefornow can only be dismantled with great anxiety. Most people confront them when they have sold the property and must remove everything for the new owner. They will even avoid this chore if they can. I have personally moved into several houses with established Herefornows left behind by previous owners or renters.

I don't think they realized. I certainly didn't. I even added to them unwittingly. It was only when we thought of remodeling to gain more living space that we realized that stuff, like a malignant growth, was beginning to crowd us from our rooms, cellars and yards.

It has always filled me with wonder to walk into an absolutely empty room. I never realized why. It is such a mesmerizing experience for me that I sneak into buildings under construction just for the thrill of it. I imagine how astronauts must feel floating weightless in space and staring at nothing but stars. Consciousness is overwhelmed by raw potential.

Children have a different sort of awareness of a Herefornow. To them, it is a museum, a treasure house of imagination. Trancelike, they put oddments together in unlikely combinations and leave them posed in the driveway. Then they wander off forgetfully. Trancelike, adults with puzzled expressions manhandle the objects safely back to the nearest Herefornow.

The Herefornow begets numbness. An otherwise normal adult can stand in a Herefornow holding a broken toy or musty book and lose all contact with the external world. Commitments are forgotten. A cardboard box is kicked absently. A cookie tin is shaken. The thought registers that one should, "get rid of all this stuff." I suspect that many people who go missing have simply forgotten themselves in a Herefornow.

If asked what is in the back of the garage, we would likely say, "Oh. Just stuff, I guess." We would look at the floor for a moment as the numbness threatened to absorb us. Then we would shake our head and rally. We would likely suggest having a cup of coffee; an antidote. Our communicant would agree, having no wish to be disagreeable.

Nature seeks to defeat a vacuum. Create one and air and moisture will seek to penetrate its boundaries. Nature recycles itself; leaves fall and decompose. Old bones go to dust. But human endeavor creates detritus that has properties not bound to the laws of nature. The Herefornow seeks to displace normal space and time. It would, of its own accord, absorb everything, and us as well.

Why, I wonder, was it given to me to have that moment of transcendent realization? Is it a warning? It is as though I could suddenly see around corners or walk between atoms. The stuff of reality altered for me forever as I found myself able to comprehend the Herefornow. Do you see it too, or is it just me?

I asked Ned this morning what he wanted to do with all the stuff we took out of his truck bed. He looked at me without expression. He asked, "What stuff?" I tried to describe it, but I could only remember the grease on my hands.