I'm driving down a country road shaded by willows and oaks. The brutal summer heat is bearable only thanks to the wind blowing into the open window. Somewhere down the dappled dirt road, there is a house with a covered porch wrapped around the front and sides, where two friends sit on stools, with guitars. I park in the shade of the house and the humidity makes the cotton shirt stick to my back.

Leaning over to grab the beaten up guitar case, I climb out of the car and walk onto the porch. I open the case and take the guitar, taking the pick from where I left it trapped in the strings by the headstock and grab a stool. One of them is telling a joke but I only grab the punchline and it doesn't seem funny but the other guy laughs anyway.

The band leader waits for me to tune up and then starts to hum the bars of the song. I've heard it before but I don't think I know it as well as I should. The melody is like a ghost, a memory of a dream. He slaps his black hand against his leg to spell out the rhythm and I wish I had even a hint of the character his voice carries effortlessly.

I wait for the other guy to begin before playing along with him. Once I get it, he lets me go on my own and begins to trade lines with the band leader. The melody sticks in my mind even though I'm only playing the rhythm, I can't remember where I heard the song, what the words were, who sang them, but it is lovely nevertheless.

A wind picks up over the stream and carries the smell of grass and water over the lawn and a hint of the afternoon sunlight with it as it rolls over the porch but the song is already flying and I barely even feel the sweat evaporating off my skin. The steel strings squeak under my fingers, leaving thick lines in the callouses.

One of them begins to sing in an old rough voice, the words of some old church song and I feel like I could hang in this fantasy version of the old south forever, playing a song that I remember from another dream, a dream the color of a faded photograph, and when I look up from the final chord, the sky is that particular, impossible shade of purple and I know that I am in another dream and any moment, I will wake up, and this life will evaporate, like so many day dreams.