The Old Guitarist

1901, Barcelona, Spain

A loose pebble from the lonely cobblestone street flies through the air as my worn shoe collides with the small rock and I watch as it arches through the air then lands hard on the asphalt, continuing to bounce down the road until it comes to an eventual stop, a lone pebble unevenly rolling to a halt in the cracks of the boulevard waiting for someone else. I look up at the skyline. All I can see is the haze of blue that comes with early night, seemingly intensified by the fading and broken yellow street lights, the beams casting shadows of greens across the lonely streets of Barcelona. All the shops have closed as I walk by the shut doors and brick walls, all locked tight no doubt, their owners currently making their daily migration to the tavern Quatre Gats, the only place open at this hour.

There is the light sound of someone plucking an old Spanish song on guitar as I walk through the blue-green hazed avenue, dusk settling like a veil over the mass of quaint houses clustered together as if they were competing for who gets the most space, the white rooftops with the occasional spire causing unearthly shadows that seem to be perfect spots for things to hide.

There's Carlos in front of me, laughing and motioning for me to hurry up or all the tequila will be gone, white light glinting in his eyes despite the darkness, his ebony hair swaying with him as he walks on the uneven surface and his caterpillar of a moustache flattening as he grins at me, eye's crinkling.

I blink and he's gone.

A lone horizon in his wake.

I keep moving.

Gunshots sound and I ignore them. There is nothing I can do. The Café de l'Hyppodrome with blood covering the floor. There is nothing I can do. A phone call from oceans away. There is nothing I can do. A crying woman....

He wasn't insane just stupid. No not stupid, in love. They seem the same. I would never have guessed that such rejection would turn him into something so hideous with jealousy, the green eyed monster against her tender yellow's even though he tried to turn her red. All I have are my paintings which no one will buy, a picture of a lost friend and a want change.

I keep moving. There is nothing I can do. This will only make me worse. It is nearly dark, the blue's turning a deeper shade and the horizon nearly out of site and the street lamps light struggling. I stop to lean on a broken streetlight, the post's cold quenching my skin from the heat that surrounds me and next to me is an old man playing guitar and I look away from the horizon to where he sits barefoot with his slender legs crossed under old torn pants and in his lap lays an ageing acoustic guitar which vibrates a slower version of Miguel Llobet's Romanza through the abandoned avenue, each strum bouncing off of the brick and concrete and swimming over the cobblestone, the strings seemingly holding on to the wooden neck by pure determination and his body is angled to the side to accommodate for the size of the instrument which his long spider like fingers pluck and strum with the ease that must have come from years of experience and as his fingers move faster he shifts his pale head to reveal blinded eye's framed by white receding hair, his mouth slightly moving as if he is whispering something and his fair beard stark white in the growing darkness that surrounded. One would walk by him in passing and think nothing of this old guitarist. Why have I stopped to listen to this old guitarist?

He is poor.

He is blind.

He is lonely.

He has wasted talent.

He can die at any moment.

Anyone can die at any moment. Carlos and I were going to live the vie de bohème and all it took was Germaine's mocking, alcohol and a deteriorating one sided relationship. All it took was one moment in a café that caused him to pull out the revolver, shooting but missing the friend he had been with and then aiming the gun to his left temple to cause a wound that would never heal. A wound that hurt everyone around him. How does the world just rob someone of their sanity and life at the age of 21. I pass children on the street who might not even make it till the next dusk but they still smile and dance to the music that always plays in the streets, their minúsculo feet tapping hard on the ground regardless of the pebbles that stick to their heel. How can I even begin to complain about my lack of money or success when these people have nothing but donations or insanity or an old guitar. I had Carlos.

The romantic melody still plays through the air slowly and softly, his frail fingers caressing the dark neck of his guitar, the green light from the streetlamp a little further down casting him in colours of the night, the original colour of the old rags he wears unknown as the blue swallows his slender frame whole. The light on the other side of the street starts to flicker out and I push off of the cooling post to be welcomed back by the heat. I walk past the old guitarist and watch as the blue turns to black, the Romanza ending in a single strum.

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