The Festival is over and the strings of coloured lights

are blowing crazy in the coming wind

One bulb comes loose, shatters on the ground

The empty streets pick up the sound, it echoes like a tiny gunshot

ringing through the damp and through the silence

Water trickles slowly like the feel of troubles only half washed away

Behind the wire the watchman doing nights sits beside a wall of screens

but he's not watching - gazing into the steam rising from his cup of coffee

He's locked away inside

Staring into the light of a different world.



Near the top of Sandford Road, there's a parked Mondeo in the shadows

The lighting of a cigarette illuminates four faces not talking, just waiting

The man in the front passenger seat holds the phone to his ear

listens to a thin voice giving the details

While in the back the boy with the long hair

stares out through the misty glass into the dark streets

and into the light of a different world



Three streets down the restaurant is empty, 3am weeknights, dead-time

The owner came here years ago and never lost the dream of going home

but knows he never will

In the kitchen his son sits head in hands thinks about leaving

Anywhere - just somewhere that's not here

Doesn't look up or see the Mondeo passing outside

He's staring into the light a different world

There's a couple in a red car coming home late on the inner ring

not talking or listening to the music just lost in their own thoughts

The Mondeo shoots the lights at sixty-five

Swerves, catches the red car that spins and rolls

Lands upside down in a crumple of metal and shattered glass

The girl sits trapped inside watching new blood trickle down her shoulder

Turns to see her boyfriend slumped against the dash

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