VolcanoHead

Time makes fools of us all. By break of morning things were a mess. I was wretched hung over with a crick in my back and Darcy had gone to the bathroom in situ. She didn’t remember the kiss. I sat with my head pulsing in my palms while she cleaned herself up. The hope drained out of it all. When I told her, she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

‘How could you?’ she said.

‘Because I wanted to,’ I told her. ‘I thought you wanted to, as well.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said.

‘Well I’m sorry for thinking it took two people to kiss,’ I said.

‘I was drunk.’

‘When are you not?’ I asked. ‘And I’m always drunk with you, it’s all we ever do.’

‘I trusted you,’ she said.

‘And you kissed me,’ I told her. ‘It was a bigger deal for me, right?’

‘No,’ she said, sadly. ‘Because I only trusted you.’

We worked it out, as best we could, but we were tired and sick. Eventually we said it was OK between us, but knew it wasn’t.

I walked back to Fife Park in the dawn light. Sky was all blue and grey. I grabbed my guitar, went out and sat on our garden path, my ass resting up against the doorstep. It was a curious mix of warm and deepest cold. I cut a pose against the breeze, found a chord on the neck of my Strat, put it all out of my mind. Fife Park was the place to be, and I was on holiday from everywhere else.

The G string snapped, with the first strum. It rasped across the other strings, and a sharp end of it flicked me in the face, just below my eye. The stinging pain enraged me. The broken string was maddening. Just when I had it all together. Fucking, just when I had it all together.

I grabbed the neck of the guitar, and brought the body down hard on the flagstones. The body held, but the veneer fractured. It was chipboard, underneath. I leapt to my feet, and swung again.

‘Fuck you!’ I screamed. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’

I brought it down over and over again, at different angles, until cracks ran over the entire frame of the guitar, but it still held.

‘Fuck you,’ I said at last, and threw the guitar over my shoulder. It bounced off the wall of Fife Park 8, and landed in the bushes near the front door. I walked away. I just walked.