I love taking evening strolls when the sun sets and the sky darkens, painted in pink and purple, while the clouds turn ashen. Before dinner, I often go out to wander.

The other day, I went downtown again. On Sundays, the sidewalks are empty, and the traffic dwindles. I craved a smoke. I couldn’t buy just one cigarette, but I wanted one. I suppose if I ever develop an addiction, I’ll shamelessly pester people for money because even for something as “innocent” as a cigarette, I’m willing to stop a stranger and ask for one. Well, this time, I didn’t run into any smokers, so I bought a pack. I lit up and sat on a bench in the city square, watching the few passersby.

A little further down, a man in his fifties sat tuning his guitar. It was a perfect scene — the pink and purple sky, the square enveloped in gathering darkness, and the musician preparing to play, as if just for me.

At some point, he set the guitar aside, stood up, and approached.
“Can I buy a cigarette?” he asked, pulling a handful of crumpled bills from his pocket.
“No need. Here.” I replied, well understanding the craving, and handed him two cigarettes and a lighter. The man took them, sat beside me, and lit up. He inhaled deeply. You can always tell when someone needs a smoke. He sucked on the cigarette so hard it seemed like it was consuming him instead — as if the man himself were turning to smoke, leaving only an empty shell behind. The guitarist’s pleasure didn’t last long, though. The cigarette burned quickly, turning to ash and scattering on the pavement.

“Play something,” I urged him. Lazily, he got up, fetched his electric guitar, and plugged it into a small battery-powered amp.
“What do you want to hear?” he asked.
“Something without too many words. Maybe even no words at all. Let the guitar tell the story. But make it sad.”
“Alright,” he said, lit the second cigarette, and began to play.

A middle-aged man stopped in front of us to listen. A woman with a small dog also paused, staring at the musician, then lost sight of her pet as it sniffed the middle-aged man’s shoe before lifting its leg. Then it trotted to the middle of the sidewalk and took a poop.

All of this happened somewhere on the periphery of my awareness because the music absorbed my attention. The melody unfolded, growing more intricate, layers of variation building upon each other. The man whose shoe had been peed on tapped his foot rhythmically; the woman with the dog smiled widely. Bored with mischief, the dog curled into a ball on the pavement.

A woman hurried past our little group, talking on her phone, and stepped in the dog poop. She cursed, then wiped her shoe on a wooden flowerpot with pretty flowers further down the square.

The musician played, and I thought how beautiful it was — and how even more beautiful it would’ve been with drums and a piano to carry and expand the melody. Maybe even a saxophone. Occasional passersby stopped for a moment, listening, but then some restless urge pushed them forward again, as if anything better could await them further down the square. I didn’t need to know much about music to recognize that the guitarist was playing something remarkable. It was a song about love, disappointment, and loss. Sometimes, you have to feel, experience, and have lived — and then understanding comes on its own.

The melody reached its height, curled like the little dog on the sidewalk, then faded, the way strong passions do after they’ve burned through you. The musician had told his story — beautiful and sad, just as I’d asked.

I felt it was time to leave. A strange exhaustion settled over me, as if the music had filled me and now weighed me down. I needed to go home.

“How lovely!” The woman with the dog clapped as the music ended. “Is that your composition?”
“Yes. You can buy a CD with ten more songs. It’s $7.”
The man with the peed-on shoe and the woman with the dog each bought a CD and walked off.

“What about you?” The musician looked at me.
“Me?”
“Not buying a CD?”
“Nowhere to play it. My only CD player is in my car, and it’s broken. Have you uploaded the songs online?”
“Not yet.”
“Pity. I’d download them. Well, never mind. Could you give me one? Maybe I’ll find a way to listen.”
“So you liked the song?”
“It was moving…”
“Can I have another cigarette?”

I handed him the whole pack as I didn’t feel like smoking anymore, and a ten-dollar bill. He gave me a CD, took a cigarette, and pocketed the rest. Lighting the cigarette, he strummed his guitar absently—maybe tuning, maybe playing something. I stood up and walked away.

“Enjoy your walk,” he called after me.
“Have a good one.”

The square had darkened. Silhouettes of people emerged briefly from the gloom before dissolving back into it. I reached the main street and headed home. The sky was a deep gray now, the last traces of pink vanishing in the west. I quickened my pace. Soon, the guitarist’s music was drowned out by street noise — car horns and engines. I hummed the melody to myself but, strangely, soon forgot it. Only the feeling of warmth and fullness remained.