He had filled the MP3 Player with songs she liked. In truth, he did not like these songs but it was her surprise party and he wanted the music playing to be songs she liked. He resisted the urge to add songs that he liked, that her friends might like too, in favour of songs she liked. This was how you organised a surprise party for the girl you love.
The songs played out, the evening played out and eventually the relationship played out. But by some cruel twist of circuitry these songs remained on the MP3 Player long after she was gone.
Over one year later as he travelled the world to forget her, he listened to the MP3 Player. He had managed to add songs, songs that he liked, to surround, buffer and smother those few hard-wired unerasable songs of hers. But still in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and China, they would surface and he could not bring himself to skip them. He let them play out.
