He'd always assumed that these sorts of things started innocuously enough. Isn't that what people always heard on Oprah? Springer? Montel? "It just happened." Like you were puttering along in your daily rut, and all of the sudden raised your head and realized you shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque. He certainly hadn't expected to know what he was doing all along, and still end up feeling like he'd come up against the working end of a Mack truck.

Was it really that long ago? He'd taken his Martin from it's case, and played. Dancing his way through an inebriated version of CatspawRag, he'd looked up and seen her. She was at a table with her friends, but that was easy enough to solve. The question remained, to fret or not to fret. Well, old man, you only live once, and fretless is really the way to go. He'd bought her a beer, she paid for the cab, and he remembered the hardshell case looked truly fine leaned up against her wall in the growing light of dawn, as it had for many nights since.

His wife was already gone for her 9-5 by the time he got home, not like it mattered. She had long ago ceased to 'know' him. At least that's what he told himself all the mornings he had dragged himself home, smelling of smoke and whiskey, only to find her sleeping in the spare bedroom. To fret or not to fret? Once again, the path of fretlessness. They lived like two shadows under one roof, and the Martin seemed to sag wherever he happened to set it down.

This morning was different, he'd hit the grill of that truck, and hit it hard. He'd reached into the hardshell after the few remaining smokes that might linger there, and found the note. The girlish scrawl outlining a woman's self-determined destiny.
Do not smile to yourself
Like a green mountain
With a cloud drifting across it
People will know we are in love.
~otomo no sakanoe
XOXOX
Shelly

Holy shit. When did this happen? He thought of Oprah and Montel. "It just happened, asshole. There you go." He lit his cigarette and picked up his Martin. He slowly picked out a little bit of 'Kansas City'- until he got to the bit about the crazy lil'wimmen there and realized he'd done got himself one. He dropped the remainder of the cigarette into a glass that his wife had left on the table, and then he slowly crumpled Shelly's note and tossed it cleanly in the garbage. Hmmm, two points.