Lie: Worn

            The Victrola’s wooden needle skittered along the worn grooves of an old 72-RPM record as the kid in the flannel shirt stood and listened; the wrinkled proprietor of the store stopped his work on the miniscule gears of a golden pocket-watch to hear the tune. Jazz exploded from the tinny speakers in the cabinet; little reminiscences of roaring parties and the warm taste of illicit drinks, of the streets downtown and the discarded relics of day-to-day life they contained, of the high hopes and low expectations of the man with the trumpet on the corner. It all coalesced into a few moments of purely human joy and dusty but brilliant white light. The machine gave this to the world freely, and then fell silent. Leaning down, the boy sorted through the books of old records until he recognized a name on one of the paper labels. He sat the thick vinyl on the table, turned the crank, and placed the needle onto the first groove. In the dim light of the sunset window, the boy saw the proprietor smile as the twelve-string guitar sounded in a haze of static and noise, becoming its own echo in the quickly changing chords and vocal melodies. Other peoples’ memories swept over their mind and calmed them, so that when the boy left the store and disappeared into the orange glow of rural night with nothing in his hands, neither he nor the owner was left wanting.