Encounter, a short story.

I waited, politely, for the last note to die off. All in all i couldn't say it had been a bad song. It had been...nice. A good job for an amateur. The question, then, stroke me with such force that my voice formulated it before my mind could do anything.

-Why do you keep playing? From what you said it's been this passion of yours that... well, drove you under this bridge. I mean, don't you hate it for that?

The old man scretched his filthy head.

-Passions by themselves don't do a shit. It's what you do with them that makes the difference. I couldn't choose to leave one behind for the other and so...

His voice studdered. he seemed to be struggling against something, as if the words wouldn't come out  the way he wanted them to.

-But... but. The thing is, even if i did choose, even if i... decided to give up playing to have more time to study... you need something to keep going. When... when you do all the shit you have to do in order to get there, to achieve your goals, when you struggle with all the stuff you really don't care a fuck about just because it comes with the package, you NEED to see what will be the prize of your efforts. Or you need some smaller achivement along the way. Something. Anything... Anything.

A tear rolled down his face. He had rised his voice durnig the last sentences of his monologue. For a moment i had thought he would start yelling. He did not. His words crashed against the stony cliffs of his memories. When his voice came back, it was low and fractured.

-At the end of the day, i rememeber... at the end of the day, after having had enought coffee and belly aching, the only thing that remained was the guitar. I would play... just because it was the only thing i could do that gave me the impression, the illusion, that i could get somewhere. The only thing that gave me the impression of taking steps towards my goals. Just for...that.

He was crying.

-And... - why i was asking that? The look on the man was devastating. Why i was doing this to him? -...and doing the "shit that comes with the package" didn't give you the impression of getting somewhere?

-No.

Another pause. He seemed to be thinking.Through the pain of the memories he was trying to find the reason of his own answer.

-When you play... when you play, even the smallest note done in the right way, after having got it wrong for thousand times, it makes you...happy. It tells you that, yeah, way to go, you got it kiddo, you can be Jimi Hendrix in a few years... Which is, obviously, wrong. It will take you decades of dedition to master only your craft. And maybe it won't be enought. That's why everyone tryes, at least for a bit, doing everything he loves. But at a certain point you need to choose. And, when you do, if on your path you don't find any small note played right that may give you happiness...

The men looked straight at me. His pale eyes wide open will hunt me forever

-When you don't, you're done.