A sign that seemed to go without saying, but greeted you nonetheless as you drove down Main Street, and I mean call it what you will, it was the biggest marquee around by some margin, a white whale in a hamlet of dolphins. None stood tall as a placeholder, anchoring the announcement better than any blank slate. (Waterford Town Events plus colon, with nothing else, no None, might’ve misled like a will-o’-wisp luring you to a false center, where events were expected, held, even if unlisted—could be hundreds.) This None was no stand-in, no hiatus, no keeping you in suspense […], no pre- or post-pandemic shutdown, no TBD, no August fair months away but here’s a reminder, just business as usual, nothing coming of nothing. Nor were there old notices abandoned, dusty minstrels perpetually traveling through—pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone. No movie reader boards from hot summers past, no blackberry pie-eating contest blasts, nor boffo bingo night discontinued. This message was insistently, eternally current. Someone, an Unknown Citizen, an inscrutable cipher from the town where nothing happens took the time to climb the ladder, bring up their Ns and Os and Es, their moveable type, and prime the palimpsest anew. This was a bold None, a proud None, a None both despairing and defiant. The None of oracles, of sorcerers, of panhandling soothsayers. A community events calendar as erasure poem. How long had it stood? how long would it keep? but these questions were absurd. When something happens in Waterford, the sign will show the words.