Big nothing.
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He stood in the road outside of town with a broken clockwork toy in
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his hand: A graveyard for childish dreams in his palm; a broken lifeline.
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Big nothing.
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The mechanical amusement sputtered to life in his fist. As he clenched, it
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whirred and died again. It was a cowboy who drew his gun, but the
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pistol was welded to the holster by age and careless children, so it
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struggled and strained and it unwound his own spring.
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Big nothing.
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He didn't need tattoos to show where he had been and who he had loved. It
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was the same thing that men had cried for; that women had dyed their hair
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for. The cellophane illusion of a starry sky stretched over an open sore.
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Big nothing.
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He thought about his lost daughter: the way her eyes would alight at the
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greedy circus barker's blackmail song; how he wanted to smash her skull
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when she parroted back, 'tell mommy; tell poppy; you need this little
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dolly.'
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Big nothing. (x2)
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The smoky voice of the petaled girl woke him long enough. There was too
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much light in the room, so he unscrewed the bulb. She took him to bed like
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an adopted dog.
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Big nothing.
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She lit sickly incense, as he tried to tell if the resemblance was pure
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and coincidental. He unleashed his grip on the toy, all it meant to him,
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and it wound down forever.
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Big nothing.
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He woke up in a sweat. The next day, with her smile still painted on his
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mouth, he walked out of a town called Big Nothing.
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Big nothing. (repeat until fade)
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-----------------
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A Town Called Big Nothing
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Elvis Costello |