They are strong, like he must have been once, but painful and powerless, like he is now. The music made the salesman think, and he did not like to think. He wanted to sell papers that was all. And now in the silence, he wanted to hear music though he did not know why. The songs made him think, and this made him sad, but maybe he had grown to like the sadness? The old man tuned his strings."Old man, you haven't played all night."He tuned."You should play, I think. It is good for business when you play. People like it."He stopped tuning."I like your music sometimes, you know. But sometimes it is too sad. That can be bad for my business you know.""But you sell sadness.""How do you mean. I sell Newspapers, magazines...""You sell pictures and stories. Pictures of death. Stories of death. There is no room for someone to know the story, the papers tell it for you. At least in music, you can think anything you want of it. You shape it, not the other way around."

And he kept on tuning. The salesman was surprised with himself, and the old man. The salesman had said no more that good day to him on occasion, and he had never heard the old man say but a few words. Mostly people just telling him he played well and he say 'thank you' to them and keep playing. The old man was silly, though. Newspapers where news, nothing more. People do not cry for news and weather. People cry for operas or sad film in the cinema, but news? He wanted to know more. The salesman wanted to hear more of his voice now too, as if it would replace the songs. It could somehow, he thought. Strong, but sad and lost. The old man tuned.

"So why are you not playing tonight, old man. Is something wrong?""Tonight is not the night""For what?""For the song""For what song. They are never the same.""This one is..... Different.""How so?""You will see, perhaps."

And so the old man tuned. For many days, he did not play, only tune. And one night, when the moon made swimming shadows on the street corner through the tree, he began to play. Slowly a tune rattled out of his guitar. The moon light was blue and gray on his skin, but his guitar and his song shone like a candle in the darkness. The salesman put down his article to listen, and he thought about the other songs the old man had played. Nothing like this. His other songs where a shadow of a once strong man, but this was still very alive. The song floated and stung, and the salesman could see the old man was struggling. His old fingers strained to press the right strings, but he still played. Faster now, the song told the salesman something. He could feel a story, like his articles, but much stronger. It was not a story of just one thing or one person, but all man. The tune spoke of a power inside the man, a light, and soon the light grew and flourished. The song grew complex, and the salesman saw that the man began to learn to play music at this stage in his life. He had in his heart this music his whole life, but now he could make it on the guitar. And the song grew greater, fuller, and prouder, as the old man reached the peak of his life. The music crashed then, and he could see the man lost something along the way, and this broke him. And the song slowed, it wilted, and it died, like all his songs before this one, and just like him.

He heard the cry before the shot. Someone, in fact many people, had opened their windows to hear the old mans song, it floated on the blue moon light into their homes. And a woman had seen the old man bring out the tiny old pistol even before the salesman, for the salesman had been thinking of his own story and not looking at the old man when the song was through. The man put a bullet into his head, and he ended his life that night. But first he told his story on his old guitar.

The salesman moved to the next corner with his papers, because sometimes at night the shadows in the trees would make him stir, and he liked the other corner. It did not have trees, and the business was better on that corner, he thought.