Nashville

I completely miss it. In one ear and out the other. Just another announcement over the speaker as I wait in line to board my flight.

It isn’t until I hear a woman behind me make a comment that it all comes crashing down upon me.

How had I missed it? A brutal reminder of how far off my game I’ve become.

The message over the speaker was this; “Can the Nashville passenger who left their guitar on the plane please return to the gate to retrieve it.”

No reaction on my part. Zip.

The woman behind me; “I guess it didn’t work out.”

Nashville. A guitar left on the plane…

“I guess it didn’t work out.”

Suddenly an entire world is created. Somebody is hurled into existence. The Big Bang of premises takes place and I literally sway under the weight of it all.

My first impulse is to leave the line and head towards security. I am certain that if I play back the footage I will see a passenger departing the plane wearing a black shirt with roses adorning the shoulders. I can see him in my mind’s eye.

I want to dive into his story, but realize it’s not mine to tell. It belongs to the woman behind me at the airport. I would simply be a musician playing a cover song.

But I know beyond any doubt that if I check the first trash can near the Nashville gate that I will find a discarded belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. I feel it in my bones. Not hurled there in anger, but a result of falling limply from trembling fingers.

I want to tell you that I broke from the line and ran to the rental car area just to see this man approaching the desk and asking to fill out a resume. His life plans taking a major left turn. Accepting the fate of a Budget plastic name tag pinned to his chest for the next ten years.

But I feel like a fraud.

Had it not been for the woman lurking behind me my heart would not be aching, thinking of this same man boarding his flight down to Nashville only a few weeks earlier, guitar in hand and his head swimming with possibilities. His heart almost bursting from his chest.

What happened in Nashville?!

I want to turn to the woman behind me and demand answers. Shake her and let her know exactly what she has started between my ears.

“I guess it didn’t work out.”

What else wasn’t she telling me?

“What else aren’t you telling me?!” I almost bellow.

Was he any good? Was this a gross injustice or simply musical Darwinism at work?

I hear her voice again.

“Are you boarding?”

My mind has wandered and there is now a large gap between me and the people shuffling forwards towards the tunnel that will deposit us at the plane. The Big Bang has become just a big bunch of objects hanging in space.

I nod at her and become another shuffler (hanging in space).