I had no idea what she was talking about. We had been sitting there in the café for almost an hour and I was beginning to feel very sleepy. For some reason, her voice was getting drowsier with every word she spoke and it was starting to sound more and more like a lullaby.

    However, she had no intention to stop. She looked terribly irritated with something, I couldn't understand what. She looked down at the table most of the time and it looked as if she was speaking to the table rather than to me. My eyes were growing smaller and smaller and I was afraid if my head stumped right onto the empty plate. I wondered why the waiters weren't taking the plates away; we had finished the pizza almost half an hour ago. As I looked around, my eyes rested upon the man at the counter who was fast asleep. Probably, the waiters were asleep too, I thought. There were very few people in the café and all of them looked dull and boring. I just couldn't stop it, before I knew I let out a huge yawn and I was very lucky because I just managed to close my mouth when she looked up at me.

    "But he is very sweet", she was saying, her eyes lighting up. I wasn't interested at all to know the mystery behind who this "he" might be. But I guessed she must have told me the name ten times already. So I just said, "O great. That's great." I couldn't find anything more to say.

    "Tell you what", she began again just when I was preparing to ask for leave, "He is a great bassist. I think you will like him."

    I was feeling so lazy and so fed up with the getting-nowhere talks of hers that I couldn't help but let out another huge yawn. I looked up and knew that I wasn't lucky this time. Trying to make up, I asked, "O yeah. So which group does he play for?"

    She just stared at me and I didn't know what to say. "Um... what were you saying about him?" I tried to get her to speak.

    She was looking so maliciously at me that I had to look away. "You weren't listening to me, were you? You were never listening to me", she thundered. "I thought I had a friend who listened to me. I thought I could tell you everything and you would help me out. I thought you understood me."

    It was too much for me. I wasn't going to give up without a fight. "Understand what?" I asked in an equally thunderous voice. "I can't get you. I mean you call up once in a blue moon and you say you want to meet me and then you go on like a broken radio without taking an interest in what I think or what I have to say. You make me sick." I ended what I had to say.

    Tears started flowing out of her eyes and I was at a loss of words. Even the man at the counter was listening to us. I wanted to apologize but I just couldn't do it. After a few moments she suddenly got up and said, "I'm going. Sorry for bothering you. I don't care what you think. And by the way, the guy I was talking about plays better bass than you do. He is the best."

    "He can be the best for you. But he can't play better than me." I shouted after her. She stormed out of the café, looked right then left, crossed the road and I saw her get into "Guitar Stuffs" across the road. After a while she came out with something in her hand that looked like a string. She looked crossly at me and hurried off.

    I came out of the café and didn't know where I wanted to go. Just then a friend of mine at the Guitar showroom waved at me and gestured me to come in. I went in and saw that there were a group of boys jamming up. I sat down on a chair and listened to them. They looked so happy. I just couldn't get her picture out of my head. She used to say I was an excellent listener and she always told me if anything new came up in her life.     

    "What's up with your friend?" my friend, who had called me in, asked.

    "Well, she's a bit upset." I said.
    "Why did she want a bass string?" he asked.
    "She has found herself a boyfriend who plays bass. It's for him, I guess", I said.

    I sat there and listened to the boys singing songs and remembered one time when I had come here with her. She thought that the bass strings were very thick and I'd told her that if she ever wanted to kill someone, she should use them to strangle the person. She had agreed. Suddenly, I had a terrible feeling if she was up to something. Was she going to hurt herself? Well, she looked really upset. And she had a very bad temper and you never knew what she would do next. I had to go and see her.

    "Which string did she take?" I asked my friend as I got out.
    "Oh… The 4th. Why?" he asked.
    "Got to go. Bye."

    And I ran to her house like my butt was on fire. As I ran, I couldn't believe she had taken my word about strangling to death seriously. I ran up the stairs of her house and knocked hard on her door. A loud music was coming out of the room.

    My heart was pounding like hell. If she didn't open the door, I would break it, I thought. But then, she opened up and looked surprisingly at me. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

    "What?" I said.
    "Why are you sweating? What's wrong with you?" she asked.
    "What did you do with the string?" I asked.
    "You ran all the way to get that string? You're not going to get it." She said.
    "What are you going to do with it?" I asked.
    "I'm going to give it to my boyfriend who plays better than you. Any problem?"
    "O Okay", I said gathering my breath, "I thought…"
    "What?" she asked.
    "Can I come in?" I asked.

    When I'd told her what I'd thought, she laughed like a hyena for about a quarter of an hour and for the next one hour I tried to convince her I played better bass than her boyfriend, then I left.