A recurring theme in Nara’s early practice is confrontations with violence. An allegory for one’s ill-fated future, in this painting, a girl with a knife in one hand and a flame ball in the other walks toward a cat as if giving it the option to choose between the two. Red smoke inscribed with “Nothing ever happens, nothing” billows from a ball of fire in the girl’s hand, and the phrase “The needle returns the first of the song and we will sing like before” is scribbled on a blackboard invoking the lyrics of Scottish rock band Del Amitri’s 1989 “Nothing Ever Happens.”