la mandolina.

He had dark, dirty hair, sweat pouring down his neck. His brown eyes, half squinted due to sun, were lost somewhere beyond the cordillera. The man, standing in the middle of the micro, or bus, was holding his light brown mandolina and playing classic Chilean tunes. Esta noche quiero que bailemos otra vez... No one seemed to be paying attention. An old woman was solacing her niñita, a man was reading a newspaper. A girl my age was holding her cellphone, herself apparently being mesmerized by the bus floor. I was watching the flee market, which had occupied half the width of the street and was at least 5-min-long-bus-drive long. Everything from skirts to socks to plastic containers to mirrors was there. And yet, all of us were listening. The girl's lips gave away her following the mandolina's cries, the woman was rather solacing herself, and, well, it was yesterday's newspaper anyway. Everybody else in the ever-crowded bus had spared some space around the musician. He was in an amphitheater. The seats located above the wheels were separate boxes, with the rest of the audience either seated or standing in all the corners of the bus.

The magic was interrupted by the epilogue of the performance. The man thanked for listening, collected the tips and got off. Everybody else remained. A gringo next to me in his dark blue sweatshirt and large bright orange Sony headphones had not heard a thing.