Autobiography of a Guitar

By Sanjana

I sat in a store for days, weeks, and then months. At first, I was excited, but when people did no more than glance at me, I grew bored. I was surrounded by other guitars, and we were fairly isolated from the other musical instruments, though we could hear the drums roaring in pain when children hammered them with their devilishly tiny hands, and the keyboards screaming when potential buyers hit all the wrong notes. But finally, I escaped that hellhole to begin the bittersweet life of the guitar of a 13-year-old girl.

My owner and I first met when I had been sitting in the music store for four months. The shopkeeper told her to look around, but she didn’t have to. It was love at first sight, at least for her. Her eyes fell upon me, and she picked me up. She pressed three of her fingers down on my strings and tentatively played the C major chord. It was the first time I had been played. Some say being played for the first time is a horrible experience, but I only think that’s true if it is a  first-time player. My life was complete, at least for the moment. After a bit of negotiating between the shopkeeper and my new owner’s father, I was sold! I felt liberated, but a bit hesitant because I would be leaving my dear friends behind, but alas, I am a mere object. If humans were to discover we had life inside of us it would be disastrous…

So she took me home and twice a week she carried me on a five minute walk; I could not see because I was inside a bag who of course did not speak to me, but after a few weeks, I noticed we would end up in the same room every time she took me for a  walk. And then she would pull me out. But then, one day, while she was practicing at home, she FINALLY noticed my strings were out of tune.(They had been out of tune for WEEKS!) She clipped on the tuner confidently. But she tightened my high E string too much and it snapped. You know how humans find it terrifying to be shot with a rubber band? This is exactly like that, only a HUNDRED TIMES WORSE. Throw in a broken bone, foolish humans, and you understand my predicament.

Luckily her father took me to a music shop, not the one I came from, another, scarier one, which I felt had something sinister about it that I couldn’t put my hypothetical finger on. My string was replaced but when I was brought back into her home, the girl no longer cared for me.

See, that’s the problem with living things. They grow old and they die. But my owner wasn’t dying. She had given up on me.

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