The day before my 16th birthday I got my guitar.

Host: The sunset bled crimson over a desert highway, the kind of light that turns dust into gold and loneliness into something almost holy. A single motel sign flickered in the distance — neon humming against the dying light, spelling half its promise in broken letters: “EL—VIS—INN.”

Inside the room, the air smelled of old cigarettes and memory. A half-drunk bottle of bourbon sat on the bedside table, catching the light from a small radio that played faint strains of Fleetwood Mac.

Jack sat near the window, his grey eyes turned toward the horizon where the sun was collapsing into itself. Jeeny leaned on the bed’s headboard, cross-legged, her long hair spilling down her shoulders like shadow silk, a guitar resting across her lap.

The strings shimmered faintly beneath her fingers. She plucked a note — soft, hesitant — and let it hang in the air.

Jeeny: “Stevie Nicks once said, ‘The day before my 16th birthday I got my guitar.’ Funny how one moment, one gift, can change the whole map of a life.”

Jack: “Change it, or trap it?”

Host: His voice was low, rough from whiskey and thought. The sunlight caught his profile — sharp, angular, carved in contradiction.

Jack: “People romanticize beginnings. They think a guitar, a canvas, a notebook — these are portals. But maybe they’re cages too. You pick one path and call it destiny. Everything else dies quietly behind it.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Destiny isn’t a cage. It’s an awakening. That guitar — it wasn’t a prison, it was a pulse. Stevie didn’t just get an instrument that day; she met her voice. The thing that would carry her through every storm.”

Host: Jeeny’s fingers moved again — this time faster, the chords rough and bright, like sparks off metal.

Jack: “A voice can betray you too. You start believing it’s who you are. You build your whole self around it — and when it falters, what’s left? Look at the musicians who lost themselves in their own echo: Cobain, Winehouse, Morrison. The gift devoured them.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. The silence devoured them — the world that told them they were too much, too fragile, too loud. Their music wasn’t the fire; it was the way they survived the smoke.”

Host: The wind pushed against the thin motel curtain, making it sway like a tired flag. The radio whispered through static. Jeeny’s words fell softly, like confessions on warm air.

Jeeny: “When I was fifteen, my father gave me a notebook. He said, ‘Write it down, Jeeny — whatever you can’t say out loud.’ And I did. Every pain, every dream. I built myself in those pages. That wasn’t a cage. That was escape.”

Jack: “And yet here you are, still trying to write yourself out of silence.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes lifted, dark and deep, shimmering with a mix of hurt and light.

Jeeny: “Because the silence never stops, Jack. You just learn to sing over it.”

Jack: “But why keep singing when no one’s listening?”

Jeeny: “Because sometimes, you are your only audience. And that has to be enough.”

Host: The air between them vibrated with tension, like the space between two notes that refuse to resolve.

Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on her guitar.

Jack: “Music is just a trick of emotion. You play enough chords, and people think you’ve found meaning. But it’s illusion — a beautiful one, sure — but still illusion.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s translation. The kind that doesn’t lie.”

Jack: “Everything lies, Jeeny. Even beauty.”

Jeeny: “Then I’ll take that lie. Because it’s the only one that saves me.”

Host: She strummed again — this time louder — a sharp, defiant chord that sliced through the stale motel air. Her hands shook slightly, but the sound was clear, raw, alive.

Jack’s jaw tightened, his gaze flickering to the radio, where Stevie’s voice filled the room — ghostly and infinite: “Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night…”

Jeeny smiled faintly.

Jeeny: “Do you think she knew, that day before her sixteenth birthday, what she was really getting? Not just a guitar — but her mirror. Her myth.”

Jack: “Or her burden.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Host: Outside, a truck rolled by, its headlights sweeping across the thin curtains like passing ghosts. Inside, time seemed to slow — the world reduced to breath, sound, and the trembling of strings.

Jack: “I remember when I was sixteen. I got a pocketknife. My old man said, ‘Now you’re a man.’ I didn’t feel like one. I just felt… responsible for cutting something. Maybe myself. Maybe the world.”

Jeeny: “That’s the difference between us. You were taught to cut. I was taught to create.”

Host: A long silence stretched between them, thick and glittering with memory.

Jack: “Maybe creation is just another kind of cutting, Jeeny. You carve a piece of yourself away every time you make something. And eventually, there’s nothing left.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But what if every song gives a piece back? What if every note you bleed out returns to you, remade — softer, wiser, more alive?”

Host: Her words hung in the dusty light, fragile but unbreakable. Jack looked at her then — really looked — as though he were seeing something he’d lost a long time ago.

Jack: “You believe that?”

Jeeny: “I have to. Otherwise, why keep playing?”

Host: The guitar fell quiet, but the echo of its last chord lingered like the aftertaste of truth.

Jack stood, crossed to the window, and looked out over the empty desert road. The sun was gone now, leaving only a wash of blue fire on the horizon.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not about the guitar or the words. Maybe it’s about the moment you decide to hold something — anything — that makes you feel less invisible.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what Stevie meant. That day wasn’t about music. It was about awakening. The realization that she had something that could turn pain into rhythm.”

Jack: “So that’s what we all chase, huh? Our sixteenth birthday. The day we find our instrument — whatever it is.”

Jeeny: “And we spend the rest of our lives trying to keep it in tune.”

Host: A faint smile touched his lips — the first all night. He turned back toward her.

Jack: “You know, I think I missed my instrument.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you just stopped listening for it.”

Host: The radio crackled softly as the next song began — an old live recording of “Landslide.” Jeeny began to strum along, her fingers finding the chords effortlessly. Jack sat again, this time beside her.

As she played, his eyes softened, following the rhythm, the rise and fall of each note — like the sound of someone remembering who they are.

Jack: “You ever think about what you’d say to yourself — the day before you turned sixteen?”

Jeeny: “Yeah.” (She smiled faintly.) “I’d say, ‘Hold the guitar. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.’”

Jack: “And I’d say, ‘Don’t sharpen the knife.’”

Host: The two of them sat in the dim room, the song filling the silence with warmth that no flame could match.

The radio light flickered, and the sound of Stevie’s voice intertwined with Jeeny’s, their harmonies blurring into one long sigh of time.

Outside, the desert wind began to rise, brushing the windows like a soft applause.

Host: And as the last note faded, the world held its breath — two souls remembering that sometimes, the smallest gifts are the ones that change everything.

The guitar lay quiet in Jeeny’s lap, but in the stillness, it seemed to hum — softly, endlessly — as if the strings themselves remembered the day before someone’s sixteenth birthday.