A Short Tale

This is a tale of a lone man. He strolled into towns and cities without anyone noticing. When he came there was no boding or foreshadowing. He just came. When he came it was never raining. It was never raining when he came. The dust was settled and the sky was grey. It was grey but not bleak, cool but not frigid. It's not that no one looked at him, it's just that no one saw him. He walked into a bar and slid into a seat and placed a guitar case next to him. He never turned his face up, never looked out the window. He stared into his hands as if they held something no one else could see. With palms up and eyes down he'd sip at his drink. A few drinks in he'd start to shaping. Shaping that thing in his hands that no one else could see. The more he drank the more he shaped. His fingers worked like a potter's, his hands strained like a blacksmith. Then after five he would stand up. Though there wasn't much up to his standing, the way he hunched. He grabbed his guitar and ambled over to the corner. From the case he pulled an instrument black as his long hair and bearing the scars of abuse and the pitiful remedies of love. He handled it with respect, carefully inspecting the front and back, ensuring it was the same as when he put it away. He rolled up his tattered sleeves and revealed his slim forearms. He squeezed his eyes and kept them shut for the next hour. He strummed and plucked at the beat-up old guitar and made the saddest sounds that a man could make. It was hard to tell what was his voice and what was the sound of the strings so mingled had they become over the years. For an hour he played, but no one was sure what he sang of. Some say it was love lost, and others say it was betrayal of a friend. It seems as if each one in the bar that day heard the pain in his heart from the man in the corner. After his hour he opened his eyes and let out a sigh. No one dropped money in his case, it wasn't a show. No one could speak. They only thought slow, deep thoughts. The only sound was the snap of his case, the creak of his footsteps, and the ring of the bell as the door swung shut behind him. "What was he doin', before he started playing?" a young one asked after a pause. No one answered for a long while. An old man made his way to the lad, laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "He was taking our pain and putting it into a shape. A shape that he could sing away. There's no reason to carry it now. He sung what we could not sing. He felt what we only wished we could feel." He looked out the window to the empty street. "He's gone now, and so is the pain. He took it with him."