For the first few months with my new owner I started to get used to a routine that we took to doing almost every day. He definitely knew how to play guitars before me and I could tell that his experienced hands would almost flow over me to create sounds that roared and yelled throughout his apartment but they almost sounded beautiful. He actually started taking me to restaurants and played me in from of small audiences. The people who we played for absolutely loved us and would sometimes ask us to play again. Then when we were done performing we would go home and he would readjust my strings and shine my paint to a high mirror shine. After about a week of the same thing he started talking to me. I figured he didn’t have many friends because nobody else came to the apartment, and he never seemed to talk to anyone else as much as he talked to me. He would tell me how his day was and what problems he was having. The topic that came up the most in our one-sided conversations was how his family didn’t understand him and how they didn’t approve of me or his music career. From these conversations I learned that his first name was Mark.

After about a year of living together and going out to restaurants with Mark we decided that we were going to try something new. So, Mark packed everything including me into his car and we were off to perform at a place where professional music performers work at. He said that we had to audition to preform there and then if we were accepted we could work there too. I was overjoyed to hear his news and hoped that the audition would go well. Once we were on the road a large crack of lightening had beamed right above us and rain started to pour hard onto the surface of the old truck. As we went on the rain seemed to be coming down harder and the front window began to fog over. I was scared to say the least because I could tell that Mark was squinting to see out. We were in the middle of a huge forest area that went on for at least ten miles before you could reach the city and I was hoping the Mark would be able to see well enough for us to get out of that area. I noticed that there was almost nobody else on the road which was also very frightening. The fog on the window was getting thicker and Mark was a having a lot of trouble seeing the road. He started to slow down a bit to wipe off the window but right as he took on hand off of the wheel we started to swerve. The water beneath the truck was slippery and the truck couldn’t stay still anymore. The truck was headed straight for the trees and hit a large rock next to the road. The rock flipped the truck over and the truck started to tumble. We flipped over a few times before the truck finally landed upside down under a large weeping willow tree off the road. For a second everything seemed to stop.

The strings that were still attached to me were buzzing in a high pitched tone that didn’t stop for a while. I didn’t think for a moment. I believe that I was in shock. I was sitting on the ceiling of the truck and after about five minutes of pure nothingness I started to recall what had happened. My neck was broken and there were two strings that were loosely still attached. As I kept thinking about the crash it occurred to me that I didn’t know what happened to Mark. After about ten seconds of searching, I found out that I all I had to do was look up. There he was. To my horror, he was laying still in the seat. His seat belt held him in even after being flung upside down. His face was covered in his dark black hair and smears of blood covered his forehead. More blood seemed to be pouring out from some wherebut I couldn’t tell at the time. Strangely, his eyes were open but still unmoving. He seemed to be looking at me. His whole face had turned a blue-gray color and he still wasn’t moving. He was just staring at me with a gaze that would haunt my dreams for a long while after. During that night I waited for something to happen or for someone to find us but the unnerving silence never ended. Even though my thoughts were uncontrollably racing around one thought in particular kept creeping back up. I wished I had legs so that I could move out of Mark’s emotionless gaze. I also wished that with my legs I could somehow get help for us. Another thought bounced around to me and it was probably the thing I wanted the most. I wished that Mark would just wake up as if he were in a restful sleep and tell me that everything was going to be alright. Even the chance to just hear his voice that night would have been so monumental, and I thought about it again and again with a small shrivel of hope still with me. But this thought was washed away from me by a flood of terror and worry. I stayed awake all night just thinking about all the things that could have happened and they were all perfectly possible. I don’t think I have ever been so terrified in my life. Every grim outcome for Mark and I was starting to seem more likely as each hour passed. Then a small glimmer of daylight began to trickle out of a slit in between the trees. With daylight things seemed more hopeful but still several more hours passed and I was growing anxious. Mark hadn’t moved all night and was still staring down at me through his huge dark brown eyes.


I looked away from him for a moment and noticed that there was a small car parked very close to our wreck. I was trying to lean over to tell if anyone was in the car when suddenly a man trudged in front of the truck and looked through the broken windshield. I was startled to say the least but I knew I shouldn’t be scared if he was someone who was going to help us. I watched him as he investigated the wreckage carefully and finally saw Mark in the front seat. He himself was started at the sight of Mark. He almost looked like he was driven to tears until I think something in his head snapped and realized that he needed to help Mark. He opened to the door and almost ripped it from its hinges as his worried gaze was fixated on Mark and Mark only. That door would have been the least of his problems. After opening the door he unfastened the seat belt and hoisted Mark up on one shoulder. For a man of his petit size Mark was most likely easy to carry for the other man. I hoped that he could help Mark, and come back to tell me he was okay. I hoped that he would come back for me, and that Mark would still want me even after being broken like this. I just wanted so badly to be back home in his apartment and away from the unpredictable wilderness that I sat in alone. I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what a wild animal would do with me and I didn’t want to think about things like that too much. So I focused my thoughts on seeing Mark again. I longed for things to be normal again and I was even thinking about how nice it would be to get that job he was talking about before the crash. I was relieved that Mark wasn’t staring at me like he was before but I missed his presence. It felt like forever had come and went in my ongoing wait for someone to save me from the forest. Yet the man eventually came back in his tiny silver car. As he stepped out of his car, I could see that his eyes were filled with grief. His steps were heavier than before, which made him stagger a few times but he caught himself. I don’t think he would have cared if he had fallen. I don’t even think he would have attempted to get back up. I thought that the pain in his was enough for anybody to give up. I didn’t really know what to make of it and I suppose I didn’t really want to know either. He finally made it to the truck and in his hand he held a large box with duct tape sealing the bottom and he started throwing Mark’s things in the box. Everything form the glove department, to the baskets Mark kept under the seats went inside of the box, and then finally the man picked me up by the bottom half of my neck which let the top half of my neck and my two strings dangle for a second. Then he dropped me in the box with everything else. Which included a broken bobble-head dog that Mark had named Spike, two dollars in change, a small tool kit, a travel sized pillow, and some pain pills. When I was in that box I started to feel like just another piece of junk. I thought that the man was just going to throw the whole box in the garbage and Mark would never even notice. But I knew that my assumption wasn’t completely true. I knew that Mark would actually care if any of things were thrown away. He kept some kind of sentimental value in everything he had. That’s probably something that comforted about him. I knew that even if he were to ever give me away he would never forget me. I don’t think he would even forget about his little bobble-head dog. At that point I just wanted Mark to be okay, and for our strange to companionship to go back to its normal routine.

Later that day, the man took me to the old guitar shop where I once lived. He told the storeowner about what happened to me. When he started talking about Mark I leaned in close to listen to every word. I needed to know what happened to him or how he was doing. I was so nervous about the conversation that I tightened one of my remaining strings so hard that it popped. To begin, I heard the man (who I learned later was called Vince) found Mark’s truck. He said that there was tire tracks leading a long way into the forest and then you could damage points from where the truck started to topple over. Then he started to talk about how Mark’s head was in rough shape and how he took Mark to the hospital to check if he was … going to live. After that, he said that the doctors told him that Mark was brain dead and there was nothing left for them to do to help him. He was gone and there was no bringing him back.

Hearing all of this was devastating. For some reason I had never thought about that as a possibility. I what Mark’s last thought might have been and then I remembered something. Mark was staring at me right when the truck stopped spinning. I could have been the last thing that Mark ever saw or ever thought about before he went brain dead. Thinking about this made me sad and confused. I wish he could have thought about something peaceful before he went brain dead, like our music. The sounds of a simple rhythm played on me, or even on his grand piano would have been a good memory. I hoped that the people at the hospital would treat him well even if he is brain dead. I also hoped that even though his brain was dead that maybe his heart could remember me and music for him.

After the two men had stopped talking, Vince left there to be fixed. It was comforting to be in my old home again with my old owner. He worked swiftly on my strings and my neck just like he had the day I crashed on the floor. Except this time he used all the same parts I had on before. After he was done with all of my repairs, he made a call and told me to wait on his counter top for my new owners to come. I didn’t care about who my new owners were or even what they were going to do with me. I just wanted to leave. The store was completely different than it was when I was l there. It was almost exactly a year since Mark had picked me up from that store. I just could never get a break from thinking about Mark and it was so hard not to think about him.

I started to think about how humans cope with sad feelings and then once again I thought of Mark. I thought about how one day we spent together in his apartment. Water was pouring out of his eyes and he kept taking about how much he loved his father. I wished I could have done something for him back then, but I never had the chance. Now I was the one was sad but I didn’t have any way I could let my feelings out. I just sat there and drowned in my own sorrow. The depression swept over like a blanket that suddenly hid the world from me. I didn’t want to do anything because I felt as though there was nothing worth doing. An emotional pit was set on fire just below my strings, and I started to envision myself on fire. The thought overall was dreadful and terrifying, but I felt as though I deserved to be punished for being so useless when Mark needed me. That fire stayed lit for a long time, and to this day I still have that flame of guilt.

I sat there on the counter just thinking about what would become of me, but I told myself that it didn’t matter where I was headed. I just didn’t have the will power to be hopeful anymore. As I pondered my fate, the front door was opened and rang the bell that hung above it. A large women walked in. She was stalky and was wearing about a tone of make-up. From the very moment I saw her, I hated her. She stood at about six feet in the air and had a smile that could make the devil cry. With her was a purse that was large enough to fit Mark’s old white truck. But for some unexplainable reason, I felt like I knew her. When she finally made it past the obstacle course of drum sets and keyboards, she came to the counter and yelled, “Hey, Ernie are ya’ in here?” For a second I was confused, because I could have sworn that that a man’s voice came from her over-sized mouth. Another voice had come from a room behind me saying, “Oh is that you Arica? I will be right out.”


“Well hurry up. I ain’t got all day. I got to get to the pizza joint to pick up dinner!” She yelled in return. I was disgusted and scared all at once whenever that women spoke. The storeowner finally walked out with a small delicate flute in his hand. Arica got one of those grins on her face as she saw him. I almost popped on of my new strings at the sight of it crawling slowly upwards under her nose. She started talk again. “So, Ernie what’d you call me here for anyways?”

“Well Arica, first and foremost I called you here to say how sorry I am for your loss and I hope you and your family are coping okay.”

“Oh Ernie we are fine. That loser of a brother left me a good hundred thousand dollars. Which means I am going to have spending money for the next few months. Oh, new shoes here I come!”


“Arica! I am appalled to hear you speak of your dear brother like that. He was a good man and I don’t think he did anything to deserve the treatment he is getting from you at this very moment!”

“Ha! You think that little rat deserves respect from me? He never amounted to anything and he never listened to me or the rest of his family. The only accomplishment he had ever had in his life was getting enough money to buy this worthless guitar!”


“How dare you say that? This guitar was special to him and to me! I made it with my own two hands and your brother played it like a pro. Neither you or your family gave him any credit for the things he did!”

“What, you mean like getting evicted? Oh yeah, Ernie that was some accomplishment wasn’t it? That little bastard had it coming. Anyways, what was the price for fixing up that thing?

“You are a heartless women Arica. First, you kill your own brother and now you are insulting him while he is in his coffin. I have half a mind to keep this guitar from you, but I know that Mark wouldn’t want to deprive it from his “oh so special” nephew. And the cost of the repairs comes out to two hundred dollars, can you afford that Arica?”

“Ernie, I didn’t kill him, I just gave the doc permission to cut his life support. I mean they said he wasn’t gonna get any better anyways so why waste money on him? And I ain’t poor Ernie, I can afford two hundred dollars. Especially after that hundred thousand from my brother.”

“God bless you.”


“Thanks Ernie!” Arica said as she grabbed me and headed towards the door. After sitting in the dark physically and emotionally, the bright sun outside surprised me. It beamed over my strings and my Metallic blue paint. Arica took me to her little red car. The car was probably just a little bit bigger than I was. I didn’t even think Arica was going to fit on that tiny little thing. But somehow she managed to squeeze her massive head into the car and the rest of her over-bearing body. She threw me in the back of the car, along with a purse that was big enough for being used by a hockey player. She turned the ignition on in the car and the car rattled a little bit before starting a smooth vroom. In the back of that fish-smelling old car, I kept thing about how Ernie said that Arica killed Mark and how Mark’s whole family didn’t even like him. I also wondered if they all had the same hatred for him as his repulsive sister had. I hoped they all had some sort of love for Mark even though he didn’t meet their expectations. I thought that if Mark loved his father so much then maybe the rest of his family would love him the same way. I wondered if they had grieved for him after they found out what happened. I didn’t have answers for most of my questions and it didn’t matter anymore because suddenly the tiny little car had come to an abrupt stop.

The outside of her house was bright and colorful with pinks and greens lining the roof and the window panes. The deck of the house was painted a bright orange and didn’t match any other part of the house; it looked disgusting. Then she opened the door, and an explosion of bright colors came at me as we started into the house. Blues, pinks and yellows were bouncing off of her walls and were smothering me from all directions. I had just gotten there and I was ready to leave. I wanted to go back to Mark and go to those little restaurants every night. I wouldn’t even mind going back to the guitar shop. Anywhere would be better than that house. Arica then took me up a steep set of stairs that shook when she walked on it. We finally made it to a small door that was surprising a plain white color. It was kind of a relief to see a normal looking door. Arica knocked hard on the door and yelled loudly at whoever was behind it. Nobody answered the door and Arica looked like she was going to explode with anger. She kept pounding on the door and at one point it looked as if the door was going to cave into the room. Finally a small clatter rose from the other side of the door and it opened. A boy that was almost as tall as I was stood before the door and asked politely what his mother wanted. She replied with a stern “This is your birthday present, I don’t care about what you do with it, just don’t bother me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it mother”, He replied quietly, “But mother my birthday isn’t for another six months. Why bother with going to all the trouble with getting me one now?”

“Let’s just say I got it because the previous owner had a slight change of plans. Anyways, just because I left you alone doesn’t mean you are excused from cleaning your room. I expect it to be clean by the time your aunt gets here, is that clear?”

“Yes mother, I understand.”

“Good, now I off to go get my hair done for the dinner tonight. I will see in an hour or so. Behave yourself.”

The boy didn’t respond directly to his mother but instead after she walked away he let out a small snicker to himself. He gingerly placed me on a stool that stood beside his bed. His room was a lot smaller than I had expected. After seeing the other rooms in the house it was surprising to see this one so small. Yet despite its puny size it had a sort of elegance to it which helped me feel a little bit of relief. There was a small ceiling fan that seemed to twirl endlessly. I don’t remember the boy ever turning it off. He had a miniscule closet that seemed to hide in one corner of his room while his bed and I sat at the other corner. He had one window that stood probably about two feet above his head. I was sure that the window was something that was appointed by his enormous mother. Then, he had a box that was on the floor under his bed. I later learned that it was full of small toys that his mother had allowed him to keep.

I felt myself pity the boy, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he reminded me so much of Mark. All of the small little flaws he carried were so similar to Mark’s own problems. One of the boy’s strange personality traits he shared with Mark was that he was polite to everyone and had an odd habit of talking to himself or me. I never really paid much attention to anything else while I stayed in the boy’s plain little room. He never played me and I don’t think I ever really wanted him to for fear that he would break me because his little hands could barely grab a glass of water without dropping it. I also didn’t trust him because I had witnessed him break his phone several times with clumsy fingers that seemed to be constantly perpetrating. Therefore I was perfectly fine with being the silent bystander to his everyday life.
to a new routine. The boy went to school in the early morning and had a bad habit of tripping over his shoes. After eight to ten hours he came back, locked his door, and started to tell me about how his day was and what homework he had in each class. After about three hours of him just talking to me, his mother would pound the door and tell him that his dinner was ready. Dinner typically lasted for about two hours and I couldn’t understand why it took so long for them to eat. Anyways, after dinner the boy would work on his homework a little and then fall asleep. That routine hardly ever changed. There were a few times when the boy was ill and he fell asleep early but other than that our schedule remained the same. He never had a day when we didn’t want to talk to me. After about 6 months I started to really get to know the boy and his life. He was still very similar to Mark yet he didn’t seem as confident or careful as Mark did. Yet he was still verily similar to Mark. He wasn’t popular with the kids at his school and like Mark had a very odd polite way of speaking to everyone. Even the people they didn’t know got the same mature friendly voice that came out only when they were talking to other people. Whenever he spoke to me it seemed like he wasn’t holding anything back and his tone of voice sounded normal. That particular thing made me feel special even though I still sat in the exact place the boy had set me down when I first came to that house. I hadn’t even moved since then. I just sat there pondering several questions or thoughts to myself. In that time I learned that I was still depressed about Mark, but being with this boy was really starting to help me.

I stayed there for about a year and a half just sitting in that corner and listening to the boy’s surprisingly interesting life. Yet all things have to come to an end sometime and it seemed that my good times in life were dragged away from me every time they got too good. So, one day Arica was snooping around her son’s room searching for as many things as she could get her hands on. Then she saw me. I was still leaning in that corner and was watching her carefully. She walked over to me and let out a snicker that was similar to the one her son made at her. A small wave of dread came over me as she slipped her cold clammy fingers around my neck and practically dragged me against the floor and the stairs. My body thumped on each step as we descended down the stairs slowly. I could feel terror rising in me as she took me outside of the house and a crisp icy wind shook me. Her little car was waiting for us just as several other items in the car were too. Most of the things I saw were things that had accompanied me in the little boy’s room. One of them was that little box of toys that the boy hid under the bed. When I saw that most of his clothes were also coming with us, a pang of sympathy struck me and I realized that nothing good could come for the boy after my departing. I thought about how lonely the boy would be after I had left. He would have absolutely nobody to talk to and no toys to play with. I wondered if his mother would have the emotional range to know what she was doing was wrong and either take all of us back or at least replace us.

Then a small tender thought came back into my head. I thought about how Mark’s family probably did the same thing to him. Then it seemed clear that the family that cared for Mark and the boy knew that they were the same. All the similarities weren’t just coincidence and the oddness of the boy would take a toll on his life just as it had on Mark’s. This realization made me care for the boy so much more than I had when I was sitting in the corner of his room. I wondered if they were going to break the boy’s dreams just as they tried to do with Mark. I wondered if they would ever approve of the boy’s choices. I wondered if Mark’s mother was half as bad as his sister. Just sitting in the back of the tiny car thinking about Mark brought my suppressed sadness back to me. I then figured that it would be best if I just went back to the old guitar shop, so then I would at least have a family to comfort me.

The car stopped and the woman again managed to get out without getting stuck in the door. She left us in the car and headed up to a building that looked very rustic and old. In fact I thought if it were to rain and a gust of wind had went by then it would surely fall over. Yet it was a sunny day and several people were accompanying the boy’s mother into the building. After a short moment of waiting in the car the woman came back to the car and grabbed the box and some other little things that came from the boy’s room. She did this several times until I was eventually the last one sitting in the car. I didn’t want to join all of the other things in that building but I figured that I had no choice in the matter and prepared myself for the worst. I could see the woman waddling slowly back to the car and almost falling on a small rock that was just outside of the building. I thought about how funny it would be to see that woman fall. But she safely made it back to the car and opened the door again. This time she actually sat back down in the car and closed the door behind her. I thought that she must have forgotten about me. It didn’t make sense for her to take everything else into the building except for me. I was probably the least like thing that she had brought into the car and she forgot to dispose of me. Little did I know, she had a totally different plan saved for me.

The car stopped again but this time we were on a back road in the city. An old man sat on the sidewalk and had a small can in front of him with a note that read, “Please give donation to those less fortunate”. The man had a short white beard that barely grew from his face. His arms were brown and wrinkled, while his facial features were as finely cut as a young man. He wore a huge blanket over his body that was held up by a large winter jacket. He seemed dirty yet clean all at once. Arica swiftly got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. She started talking to the man and then quickly turned back to retrieve me. She gave me to him, and told him that I was probably better off sold as scraps to local musicians.

After she left I feared that the man would listen to her and start tearing me apart piece by piece, but he never did. Instead he got out an old guitar pick and began tuning me. It was strange to see someone this run down and filthy to be so strangely elegant in his music playing. I figured that he had years of experience but considering how he looked I thought he would have been a little rusty. I was wrong. Every stroke of the guitar pick along my strings was flawless. We played probably a dozen songs that day and I was so overjoyed to be in use again, but I overlooked something very important; we didn’t have any shelter. It actually snowed that day but, the old man took off some of his blankets and wrapped them around me. After that I had absolutely no more worrying about what he was going to do with me. Instead I started to grow used to the weather, and the old man started playing me in public. I didn’t know what to make of what we did but in some sort of strange way it was self-satisfying. We would go out on the sidewalks of the city and play all sorts of amazing songs. The man would also take around his small can in hopes of someone giving him his donation. I also hoped that we would get some sort of donation, but often times the can was either empty or scarcely filled. The old man and I still wondered carelessly through the city and would find that we were invisible. In some strange way we were invisible to everyone else in the city. Nobody could see us but we could see everything. Time was moving too fast for everyone else while it was moving at a relatively slow pace for us. All the little things that everyone else would miss in their day to day lives, we would see. I guess we counted as something that people would miss. Then after four years of traveling around the city with the old man someone finally noticed us. A man that was very young and slender walked up to us and listened to a song that the old man and I often played. He waited until we were done and then took a very large amount of money out of his pocket and left it in the can. The old man looked bewildered and asked the younger man if he was crazy, and the young man simply replied with a small nod and asked if he could play me. The old man out in the younger man’s hands and spoke only two words that would change everything, “Keep it.” At first the younger man looked shocked at the old man’s gesture, but then nodded and we started towards a shiny black car that the younger man had come in. I was gently put into the passenger’s seat and after the door closed I strained to look back just as the older man waved. At that last moment before the car started, I saw the older man’s face and he was glowing vibrantly with happiness. That was one of the best times in my life.

Then the younger man drove farther into the city until we made it to a small old apartment complex. He took me up to his apartment which consisted of a mess of miscellaneous items all over the floor. He stumbled over some trash a few times before we made to a room in the back of the apartment. It turned out to be his own personal studio. There were wires and records laying across the floor but they were somewhat organized compared to the rest of the apartment. My place in the apartment was towards the back where there was a stand he had for a guitar. It was nice to have my own little place to myself but it was also lonely compared to the other few places I have been. The young man played me often and would sing too, but his affection towards me was slim to none. Nonetheless after a month of living with him and his rotten pizza, he started to take me out to restaurants just as Mark had done before. Other than that this younger man had almost nothing in common with Mark. He would only ever come in the back room to take me out to restaurants, which only happened about once a week. Whenever we did go out to perform, the audience seemed to like us very much. One night when we performed the audience liked us so much that they actually wanted us to play again. That night after we played our encore, a tall man in a suit came backstage and started talking to my owner. From what I heard he really liked our performance and wanted to make some sort of a deal with us that would make us a lot of money. I was pretty excited for this at first, but after my owner called back the man in the suit everything changed.
After a week we moved to a new bigger apartment that had a cleaning lady and special food service. There was another man that attended to my owner’s every need and then someone else who attended to my every need. Whenever we were out of the apartment we would go to a much cleaner recording studio to record songs that we would have to play over and over again. Then after another two weeks we started doing live performances. At first it was mostly for just a few hundred people, then a few hundred more would show up, and then there ended up being thousands of people that showed up at each performance. Then we started traveling farther and farther away from home. It was tiring and I just needed time to rest but there wasn’t any room for that on the schedule because we had a show every night. I now feel lonelier than ever even though I am surrounded by thousands of people. I just need an escape.
My owner’s name is Alex and I don’t even get to see him until our performances. My caretaker is the one who I see the most but our meetings usually consist of tuning me, shining me, and then leaving me in a dark room with a piano. Things aren’t the way they used to be and since there isn’t anything else going on right now, I tend to think of my previous owners. I especially think of Mark. I wonder if he is doing okay wherever he is. I wonder if he could see how I am doing. I hope that his family now knows the trouble they put him through. I have also been thinking about that little boy and if he is still tortured by his horrible mother. Then once I am in the middle of thinking about these things a very peculiar thought pops into my head, “What if none of this ever happened?” I know it’s something I shouldn’t be thinking about because I know I can’t take back anything I have done in my past , but I wonder what life would be like if I had just stayed in the shop. I guess it would have spared me a lot of pain, but that would also mean I would have never gotten to meet Mark or his nephew. I need to stop dwelling on the things in my past and focus on what I am going to do to escape this ridiculous excuse for a good life. I don’t want to be famous anymore, and I can’t help but think about how much I just want to be with Mark again.

Another year has went and gone since my last trip to Hawaii. I feel like this escape plan of mine just seems to get more and more hopeless. I found out that Alex has just bought more guitars which I figured will replace me soon. I suppose I don’t have to keep trying to leave if he is just going to replace me anyways. I just don’t know where he is going to put me now. We have been performing back in the United States for a while now and we are planning on going back home to do a concert. It will be good to go back, but I heard that we will only be there for two days. I hope that I see someone I actually know like the old man, or the little boy. But I realize that I will probably never see them again and I know that they probably forgot about me by now. I feel like I don’t want to be anywhere anymore. I just want to leave this universe and go to a different one because I am just not cut out to live here. If I could just find a way to stop existing for a few days I would do it.
We are finally back in our home to do a concert and check on the apartment. Since Alex is trying to save his money he decided that it would just be smarter to stay at the apartment we started in than keeping the one with a cleaning lady. It’s comforting to see this old place again, even if it still is a rundown old place. Alex needs to move everything back into his apartment so we are probably going to do the concert tomorrow. Moving men with moving boxes just started pouring right through the door one after the other. Alex and his team of minions got right to work after the moving men had left. I was set on the kitchen table while they were getting in to arguments about where certain things had to go. I started thinking to myself again and then I spotted something. Alex’s personal caretaker had started setting up a rack of new guitars on the other side of the apartment. I figured that one of these days was going to be the day of my release because there was only enough room for ten guitars on the rack and I wasn’t one of them.

After Alex and his team were satisfied with themselves they made a plan to go have lunch with some of Alex’s family here and for some reason they were planning to take me with. We hardly fit into Alex’s little sports car, but somehow we also managed to fit his little brother in there too. We stopped at a little café on the outside of the city. Alex’s little brother didn’t even look like him and was much more timid than he was. He was probably no more than twenty years old, and he seemed to be worried about something because his foot would not stop tapping while we were in the car. When we finally got out of the car Alex took me and told his team to stay in the car. They looked confused because they all thought that they would be coming in with Alex. But they left anyways, which made it easier for me to relax. At this point in time I am confused, and I am not really sure what Alex is doing. I am just going to try and trust him with whatever choice he makes for me.
We walked over to a little wooden booth that had a tiny wooden table, and Alex set me down next to him while his brother sat in front of us. They started talking about how their lives are right now and his brother was telling him how their mother was doing. I guess she was in the hospital because she had a heart attack. I felt bad for Alex, but it seemed as though he didn’t really care too much. Then they started to talk about why Alex had asked his brother to come down here and talk to him. “So Alex, what exactly am I here for anyways?”
“Well, I just wanted to see my brother again. I mean after all it’s been a long time since I have visited you or mom. “
“Yes, but you are not the type of person to just come out and visit. Which is why I found it very peculiar that you would just show up and ask to see me.”
“Well I suppose you are right. Listen, after you moved out of mom’s place I heard a rumor that you were starting a band.”
“How did you find that out? I thought I was keeping a pretty good secret. Do you think mom knows?”
“No, she wouldn’t know. After all she was been in the hospital for a while. Anyways, a friend of yours told me that you were getting especially good at playing the guitar now.”
“Well yeah I guess I have, but why does it concern you?”
“Because I have a very special guitar that I need you to keep. I bought it off of the old man that sits on the corner.”
“Why did you buy a guitar from the old man? Why didn’t you go to the shop down the street? Why is it so important to you?”
“Well it was actually a very new guitar when I got it from him. I had been eyeing that guitar for a few months and figured that my money could actually go to something useful for once. This is one of the best guitars you could buy and I am pretty sure that with all the resources you have you can keep it in good shape.”
“Wow, thank you. I didn’t know that this guitar meant so much to you. I will keep it safe for you.”
Alex then handed me over to his brother, who was very eager to see me. Alex’s brother investigated me closely and finally gave out a loud gasp and said, “Alex, I have seen this guitar before. Mom gave it to me right after Uncle Mark died. I had it in my room and she told me it broke. This is it, I know it is.”
“How can you be so sure it’s the same one?”
“I know because I wrote my name on the back of the neck.”
I guess none of us ever noticed it before, but on the side of my neck a small inscription read “Andrew Mark Davis”.