song

A bar. Wooden walls. Big table. Several people, talking. About what they believe is philosophy. A man. Sitting at the table. With the people but not with them. Listening to a song. Unfamiliar song. The verses say "I am leaving you". The man is completely overwhelmed by the song. Does not hear what the others are talking of. Even the smoke of the cigarettes does not bother him any more. The music. The verse. It is different. It is a parallel world, though the man is aware of the lame style of such a talk. Still. The song pertains to a different reality. The man stops thinking. Looks empty through the smoke, as if trying to read the words in the air. It is exactly the same song that he would have listened to some twenty years ago, no matter what. Yet, he never heard it. Never heard the band. It is a new old one. The worst kind. The man is anxious to learn the name of the song, the name of the band and to find it. To listen it again. And again. And again. At home. In the car. In his dreams. He knows that he would never find this song, this makes him crazy and he would rush right away to the bartender grab his shirt and take the name of the radio station. Then, the station. The puzzled looks. Still, they will give him the name. The names. Not the song. But it is easy from now. He would find it. Smoke. The man is not leaving the table. Not for a second. The explosion settles down, quietly. He can't. Leave the table. He can't move. He does not want to. He is in the music, the song is for him. Not for a single thing in the world he would leave the song, no he won't. He knows, it would be over. Soon. But the time till the end is eternal enough. Some seconds, perhaps. Smoke. Haze. Fog. "I am leaving you". No tears. Too much smoke. The person next to the man is repulsive. The table. No people. Just empty talk. Last accords. The man is feeling. He does not know what it means. He does not know what it would be to live without it. He knows it is coming, though. He wants to cry out loud. The song is still not over. He does not. End. The man is silent, not moving a finger. For the last 4:54 minutes. The radio puts some nice famous song on. Awful. A girl, nice, passing by. Uniteresting. Beer. It does not matter. The man realizes that in this very moment his life changes. That was the only music. He does not want to live without it. He has to. Greeks would call it a drama. In the eyes of the table smokers it would be a comedy. In fact it is a tragedy. Without the theatrical connotation. It is a life, empty of the music that makes it pulse. The man moves his head towards the door. The people try to speak. Does not listen. It is not the song. It is not there.

The door of the bar opens. The man walks away slowly. He is not seeing the grey sky. The faces of the people. The sounds on the streets. The car horns. The traffic. The song, a memory. It can't be. It should not. The man walks straight. No movement aside. Still does not see. Because he is not listening. Does not see. Straight. A truck. "I am leaving you".

In a lame parallel world. The song is going on. For good.