Some hems, some hums, some uh-huhs.

They sat around in the low light and the blue smoke of the room and after a while he picked up a guitar and started to strum some rudimentary chords, plucking triads and tripping harmonics and, believing he was, of a sudden, some rough blues man, he began to throw in some hems, some hums, some uh-huhs with such a confidence that she, and even he, began to imagine that he was either a genius or a fool. She sipped at the wine – perhaps this is what they called jazz?

Eventually his cigarette burned all the way down in the ashtray and the filter flipped over onto the table and, as if awoken from a trance, he said, do you want to go to bed? And she shrugged and said sure. And he said, with me? And she said, yeah, sure. As long as it stops you playing guitar. He put the guitar down and dropped the filter back into the ashtray and stood up.