Seeing Nothing and Saying Nothing

So, it goes like this:

These guys come up to us on the street; we're smoking cigarette after cigarette, talking about Middle East peace resolution and why things are named what they're named, like Kentucky blue grass, for instance.

We're just talking and they approach and the one guy, kind of short and square-eyed; you know what I mean, right? Square-eyed? Almost, like a cartoon character, the short guy, dressed in a blue turtle neck, dark-blue-faded-at-the-knee blue jeans and a worn red toboggan, opens his palm and says: "take a look."

So I say: "Look at what," to him, peering down and then looking at both the short guy and his friend, a fiendish looking bloke with a square head, black-rimmed glasses and an itch to be somewhere.

And I meant it, to what? There was nothing there.

So, he said look again and so I did. Still nothing.

I turned to my friend and I said, nothing.

I guess some people see somethin', but I don't when there's nothin'. And, even worse, some people talk about nothin' when it's just that.