A Town Called Big Nothing

Big nothing.

He stood in the road outside of town with a broken clockwork toy in

his hand: A graveyard for childish dreams in his palm; a broken lifeline.

Big nothing.

The mechanical amusement sputtered in his fist. As he clenched, it

whirred and died again. It was a cowboy who drew his gun, but the

pistol was welded to the holster by age and careless children, so it

struggled and strained and it unwound his own spring.

Big nothing.

He didn't need tattoos to show where he had been and who he had loved. It

was the same thing that men had cried for; that women had dyed their hair

for. The cellophane illusion of a starry sky stretched over an open sore.

Big nothing.

He thought about his lost daughter: the way her eyes would alight at the

greedy circus barker's blackmail song; how he wanted to smash her skull

when she parroted back, 'tell mommy; tell poppy; you need this little

dolly.'

Big nothing. (x2)

The smoky voice of the petaled girl woke him long enough. There was too

much light in the room, so he unscrewed the bulb. She took him to bed like

an adopted dog.

Big nothing.

She lit sickly incense, as he tried to tell if the resemblance was pure

and coincidental. He unleashed his grip on the toy, all it meant to him,

and it wound down forever.

Big nothing.

He woke up in a sweat. The next day, with her smile still painted on his

mouth, he walked out of a town called Big Nothing.

Big nothing. (repeat until fade)