Disgruntled Guitar
Dec 4, 2022 21:24:35 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Dec 4, 2022 21:24:35 GMT -5
Disgruntled Guitar
By
Radrook
By
Radrook
“How can you be so cruel?”
I was sure it was my imagination. After all, I live alone in this one-bedroom apartment and three O'clock in the morning, and everything else was deathly silent. From my second-floor window, I could see the snowflakes cascading past and adding more snow to cars that were already covered in thick layers in the parking lot two-stories below. So no rowdy neighbors wee going t be loitering at that time of night in that snowstorm.
So I explained it away as a normal REM, rapid eye movement hallucination, you know, those normal, vivid dreams that happen when we are beginning to fall asleep or starting to come out of deep sleep. So after having taken that brief look out the window, I decided to go back to bed and try and get some shut-eye. But then I heard it again.
“How could you treat me this way?”
Before, I hadn't noticed. But this time I realized that the sound seemed to be coming from-my classical guitar-case next to my bed. Being skittish of the supernatural, I hurriedly flicked on the light, put on my trousers, shirt, and shoes, donned my coat, and barely succeeded in controlling the urge to bolt. But even if I had bolted, where was I to go? It was freezing outside, and I sure as hell wasn’t too keen on spending the rest of the night sitting in the building stairwell. So I just said:
“Nawwww, it couldn’t be!” It had to be either my sleep-deprived imagination, or else, some kind of practical joke. After all, my old decrepit guitar couldn’t be actually speaking. Since I really had no reason to suspect a practical joke, I decided that it had to be my imagination.
But just to get any other possibility out of the way, I cautiously opened the guitar-case, and there it was, as inanimate as it had always been-my guitar. Sure, it was a beauty to behold, with its light beige front and its polished mahogany back. It was a mesmerizing beauty that seemed to promise musical excellence. In fact, that's one reason I had bought it. But that never happened.
You see, this beauty turned out to be virtually untunable. Well, not really. Sure, I could tune it and get a fairly decent sound when I was extremely careful to pluck or strum it at just the right angle and with precisely the right force. The problem was that finding the right angle and the right force turned out to be virtually almost impossible.
Sure, I did manage it sometimes via sheer dogged determination and chance. Unfortunately, what seemed to be the right plucking angle and the right force one moment, would suddenly, (and seemingly maliciously) turn into the wrong angle and wrong force on another without seemingly any rhyme or reason whatsoever.
At such times, I kept getting the eerie feeling that the guitar was actually snickering, as if it were actually deriving some type of perverse pleasure from allowing me to enjoy momentary success, only to deprive me of it moments later. Whenever I would become deliriously beguiled with the beautiful melody of such songs as Romansa, Maria Elena or Recuerdos De Alhambra, instrumental songs that it was momentarily allowing me to produce, it would kick me in the gonads by, suddenly squealing like a stuck pig, yowling like a mangy, feral dog, or else screeching like an injured cat.
At other times, it would mercifully content itself with just string-buzzing-especially during passages in which the melody required sweetness of tone. Also, during parts that demanded volume, it seemed to cunningly refuse to resonate by muffling itself so that it could barely be heard. Most of the time all this was accompanied by a persistent seemingly preternatural effort to remain untuned or semi tuned for the remainder of the day. I would also need to be very careful when shifting up and down the neck since it could elicit a squeal as if you had just pulled the tail of some mangy, and morose ally cat or had just stepped on some rat with your hob-nailed boots.
Not a very encouraging experience, and one that would usually infuriated me. At first, during such frustrating moments, I would curse the man who had designed it. I imagined the malicious Luthier snickering while he went about his work, making absolutely sure that all these little unpleasant nuances would happen and making absolutely sure that his creation would never play quite right.
I imagined him justifying his mischief by claiming to have been paid peanuts for his labor, and that whoever bought his so-called guitar, deserved all the nasty frustration he could make it produce. After all, what decent human being would be expecting to purchase a good guitar for less than two-hundred dollars? For five hundred? Well, then maybe this Luthier would have made sure that the guitar remained tuned for at least a few hours. But for that meager price, damned if he would grant such a cheapo musician the satisfaction.
So I would imagine him selling this piece of shit to stores after giving it the regally-sounding name of Lucero.
Now, since I could not get my grubby hands on the Luthier's pencil neck, I would threaten the guitar itself with violence. Threats of taking it the the riverbank and swinging it against a tree. I would finish the tirade by slapping it on its side with the palm of my hand. A first nothing unusual happened, but then, in time, I thought that I began to hear an “Ouch!”
I had attributed it to sleep-deprivation or an overactive imagination produced by the intense frustration. But now this? Could a guitar actually talk? To test this idea, I cautiously responded to what I thought I had heard it say:
“What do you mean that I am being cruel?” I said very cautiously and waited. But all remained silent and I heaved a sigh of relief, But just when I was about to undress and go back to bed:
“Why do you abuse me for something that is not my fault, Geraldo?" I heard it respond.
"I can’t help it if the Luthier made me this way! I can only produce what I can produce, and nothing more! Is it my fault that the bastard warped my neck on purpose. That he positioned my frets so that my strings buzz. That he made sure that my tuning pegs would not hold the strings firmly, so that they slip and cause constant untuning! Do you think I enjoy making those infernal screeching sounds? Also, why do you always put cheap strings on me? Why don't you play me right? I have to put up with your clumsy strumming and picking. It's disgusting!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! That's right clumsy cheapo!" it angrily responded!
"For a moment I felt like closing the case, sloshing across the parking lot snow, and dumping it into the garbage bin. "Goodbye and Good Riddance!” I thought. But then, compassion set in. She, the guitar, was absolutely right. It wasn't even her fault that I fitted her with cheap strings. Wasn't her fault that I wasn't a virtuoso guitarist either. Or that her malicious creator had made it impossible for her t play right.
"I apologize!" I heard myself whisper.
"Thank you!" she replied.
"Me? I shut the case and went back to sleep. Sleep-deprivation can sure make you imagine some crazy things, but this one had sure been a humdinger!" I said softly to myself.
"Sleep deprivation? Ha! Nice try but no cigar!" I think I heard it mumble after purposely popping several strings.
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