Around the sunsets in Naples, Italy, a young musician named Matteo walks through the neighborhoods of the city, playing his guitar, to pay for his meals. He grew up in a small town, where music was not as big as his talent, but he always dreamed of becoming a musician. His father lent him his guitar before passing away, and so he started playing the guitar at 5 years old. His grandma took him to every single guitar lesson in town she could afford, worked endless shifts to help him achieve his goals, and Matteo always made her proud by just playing the guitar. When Matteo started his life by himself, it was hard to have something settled when the only thing you know how to do is music, so he started playing music on the streets. Day by day, from sunrise to sunset, Matteo walked around the city playing music for the people, but the longer he kept doing it, the more he realized it was not going to be enough for him. He had sold everything by now, including his guitar, which was the last item he had to sell to pay rent.
One day, walking around town, it started raining, so he went down an alley, and ended up in this old pawn shop he had never seen before. He went inside, and the shop was full of rare but unique antiques. The owner greeted Matteo; and as he walked in, he noticed a stack of faded vinyl records, in which a strange instrument stands out. It looked like a small wooden mandolin, but the strings were darker, almost bronze, and the body carried a tiny carved pattern along the edges. Matteo asks the owner how much it was for it, the owner tells him it was 10 euros, which is funny because even broken instruments usually cost more, but he paid for it anyway. That night, Matteo sat on a bench by the coast of the Town; he started tuning the instrument, well, at least trying, since the strings hummed strangely, deeper than they should have. When he played the first few notes, the melody felt unfamiliar, but his fingers seemed to know it. As he played, an old woman passed by and stopped abruptly. Her grocery bag slipped from her arm as she turned to Matteo, her eyes got tearful and suddenly, a soft, sadly smile accompanied by a whisper saying “My father used to sing that” showed on her face. Matteo kept playing, and then, a couple was walking past him, but then they slowed down. He squeezed the woman’s hand as he laughed, it was the song that was playing the night the couple met for the first time.
Matteo felt a strange chill, but he kept playing. He played a different tune; a teenager that was sitting by the fountain suddenly wiped his eyes, confused, and said: “My grandma used to hum that when I couldn’t sleep”, an old taxi driver lowered the window and said: “That’s the song they played at my wedding”. Matteo, overwhelmed by the unexpected reactions of the people, realized that every melody he played seemed to unlock something inside people, memories they had forgotten, moments buried somewhere deep.
Matteo never played the same melody twice, and every single time, people gathered around him, and they never had the same reaction; some cried, some laughed, some just stood very still, remembering pieces of their lives they thought were lost. A women approached him and said: “That was my mother’s lullaby; I haven’t heard it since I was a child”. She looked at him with wonder and asked him: “How do you know all these songs?”. Matteo looked down at the old instrument, and said: “I don’t, I think it remembers”.