I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there

Host: The night was thin and silver, stretched across the small town like a quiet song. A single streetlight hummed outside the old record shop, its glow flickering over the windowpane dusted with the ghost of yesterday’s posters — Bowie, The Smiths, Hendrix, ghosts of sound frozen in paper. Inside, Jack sat by the counter, a half-empty glass of whiskey at his side, his fingers tracing the grain of a wooden guitar propped against his chair. The strings were old, slightly rusted, but the shape was beautiful — like an artifact of devotion.

Jeeny leaned against the doorframe, a wool coat wrapped tightly around her shoulders, her breath soft, visible in the cold air. The radio played faintly — an acoustic melody that could have been Johnny Marr himself, or someone dreaming to be him.

Jeeny: “It’s funny, isn’t it? How a child keeps waiting every Christmas, not for the guitar itself, but for the sound that will one day be real.”

Jack: (smirks) “Or maybe just for the bigger box. Kids want what’s wrapped and new, not what’s earned. It’s not about the sound, Jeeny. It’s about the chase.”

Host: The wind stirred outside, brushing against the windows like fingers searching for warmth. A neon sign flickered — “Vinyl Dreams” — casting blue light across their faces, turning Jack’s grey eyes into steel and Jeeny’s brown eyes into amber fire.

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. It’s always about the sound. Even when you don’t know it yet. That boy, whoever he was — he was growing toward something. Every box was a promise, a step closer to his own voice. Don’t you see? That’s what faith looks like.”

Jack: “Faith?” (he laughs softly, bitterly) “You call that faith? It’s expectation, Jeeny. The parents gave him a new box each year because they wanted him to believe he was getting closer. But that’s what the world does — it teaches you to wait for the next box, the next promotion, the next love — until one day you realize the sound you were waiting for isn’t coming.”

Jeeny: “Unless you make it.”

Host: The room fell quiet. The guitar strings shimmered faintly as if they’d caught the echo of her words. Jeeny walked closer, her hand brushing across the neck of the guitar, her fingers trembling slightly.

Jeeny: “He kept playing, Jack. That’s what matters. He didn’t stop because the sound wasn’t perfect. He grew into it. That’s how it is with life. Every year, we unwrap something that’s not quite enough — until one day, it is.”

Jack: “You sound like a poet.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a man who’s forgotten how to listen.”

Host: Jack looked up sharply. His jaw tightened, but there was a flicker — a wound behind his eyes. He took a breath, exhaled slowly, and stared at the whiskey glass as if the amber liquid held an answer.

Jack: “You think listening fixes things? You think the world rewards people for listening? Look around. The world’s built on noise — money, power, distraction. No one hears anything anymore. It’s not about the sound, Jeeny, it’s about the volume.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because people like you stopped believing the sound could be enough.”

Host: The air thickened. The radio crackled, skipping to a Smiths riff, the kind of melody that sounded both sad and triumphant at once. The sound filled the silence like a memory returning uninvited.

Jack: “You talk about sound like it’s something pure, something untouched. But even Johnny Marr — he didn’t just play for himself. He played because he wanted to be heard. He wanted an audience. The bigger guitar, the proper sound — that’s the reward, Jeeny. It’s the product of all the waiting. Without that final box, there’s no song.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Without the waiting, there’s no soul in the song.”

Host: A gust of wind slammed against the door, the sign outside rattling like a warning. But inside, their voices only grew softer, deeper — like two currents colliding under a frozen river.

Jeeny: “Every artist, every dreamer — they live in those small boxes before the sound comes. Think of Van Gogh, painting in dark rooms, with no one to see the light but himself. Or Beethoven, composing when he couldn’t even hear. Do you think they were waiting for a bigger box, Jack? No. They were learning to hear something the world couldn’t yet.”

Jack: (leans back, voice low) “And look how that worked out for them. Genius, yes, but broken, alone. You keep romanticizing suffering as if it’s the price of creation. But maybe it’s just a kind of madness we glorify to make pain sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “And maybe cynicism is just fear dressed up as wisdom.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, cutting through the smoke that curled lazily from Jack’s cigarette. He looked away, his face half-lit, half-shadowed, as if caught between two worlds — the one that doubts and the one that remembers.

Jack: “You think I’m afraid?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Of hope. Of the moment when the sound becomes real — because then you can’t hide behind the silence anymore.”

Host: A moment passed. The music outside stopped. Only the rain, gentle and rhythmic, filled the gaps between their breaths.

Jack: “When I was twelve,” he said finally, “my father gave me a guitar. It was secondhand, one string missing. I played it until my fingers bled. He said he’d buy me a new one when I learned to play that one perfectly. He never did. Maybe that’s why I stopped playing.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s why you’re still listening.”

Host: The light flickered again, casting her face in gold. There was no accusation in her tone, only a deep tenderness, like someone holding the memory of another’s pain.

Jeeny: “You keep saying it’s about the bigger box, the louder sound, the final reward. But maybe the sound you were meant to make was already in that broken guitar.”

Jack: (softly) “And what if it wasn’t enough?”

Jeeny: “It never is. That’s why we keep playing.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drumming on the roof like an applause from the unseen sky. Jack’s eyes softened, the hardness dissolving into something raw, something almost like peace.

Jack: “You know… maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not the sound that matters. Maybe it’s the growing into it — the way he did, the way we all do. Every year, a bigger box. Every day, a little more of yourself.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The music isn’t the sound — it’s the becoming.”

Host: The words lingered like echoes long after they stopped speaking. Jack reached for the guitar, his fingers brushing against the strings, tentative at first, then steady. The note that rose was simple, unpolished — but alive.

Jeeny closed her eyes, listening.

Jeeny: “There it is.”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “The proper sound.”

Host: Outside, the rain began to fade. The sky over the town split open just enough for a single ray of moonlight to fall through the window, striking the guitar’s wood like a quiet revelation.

And for a moment — brief but eternal — the sound, the silence, and the souls inside that little record shop became one.