Short part of something I'm writing -

Nov 05, 2007 - 14:52 PM PST

Out of grace and pity, the (s)he strummed all the open strings. I saw its face; it’d evolved from an it-human to a mask of bleeding muscle that’d spent time in the sun and lost its color. The crust of the (s)he’s face covered only the surface, and beneath it, freshness oozed between the cracks like a volcano ready to burst.
It strummed the guitar just to give me something to react to, to give me a choice to move. Without that choice, I’d be helpless and stuck forever.
Although sound came from my ex’s guitar, it was an accidental sound, a careless strum with no meaning, and the black-and-white world around me moved and performed its functions in a sick way; the children played, but their motions gave them pain. There was no harmony or fluidity to the sound, and the trees breathed like they had pneumonia, the workers’ muscles ached inappropriately, and the souls of everything groaned in a state of depression.
My own body had become lax, and if I hadn’t known that this would be the closest thing I’d get to an opportunity to fight the Masochist Shadow, I wouldn’t have done anything. I reached for the guitar, the power source, convinced that although I could not play as well as the (s)he, I could at least have better intentions than it, and that could make the world run not better, but purer.
I grabbed the neck with both hands and pulled it from the (s)he like I was grabbing a baseball bat and brought it back with the disgusting force the music gave me. My eyes closed in mock-effort; the (s)he let go readily but condescendingly, like a father relinquishing the remote control to a curious baby. The (s)he was letting me see it with the assumption that I wouldn’t know what to do with it and that I’d give it back with none of my questions answered. When I realized this, the desire to break one of those assumptions taunted me, and I could only think of one way to do that.
I strummed the open strings, and although the motion was the same as that of the (s)he, I somehow produced a sicker functioning in the world around me, so much that the cells of the children screamed murder and begged for the return of the beautiful world they’d lost. They did not understand why they were being punished by this transfer from a suitable parent to one in a fit of drunken stupors and ineptness.
I could not break the (s)he’s confidence in that I would be clueless with the life-giving guitar in my hand. It’d now failed to be Ghost-ar because I couldn’t feel my ex in it anymore, couldn’t feel that safe, loving touch that’d held me the night I’d taken it home. It’d become a source of the world and a source of evil at the same time, and it had a force I couldn’t grasp; I could only speculate.
But I could defy the (s)he and refuse to give it back.
“This doesn’t belong to you,” I said to the (s)he. “You stole it. You stole it, but that’s alright, because he talks to me regardless. He doesn’t need the guitar to have a voice. He does not need you to moderate. He’s worth the art in the world all by itself, even if he can’t make it solid or tangible. You failed to destroy him by taking his guitar. He doesn’t need it and I don’t need you.”
The Masochist Shadow smiled like I’d done something right.
I brought the guitar back like a bat and swung deep into the cracking, splitting face of the (s)he, and on contact its countenance completely opened like an overcooked pie. The black crust fell and anything wet inside was quickly overcome by the force. To my rage, the sounds the guitar made in this collision were still better than anything I could’ve created with my hands, and so I swung the guitar again and again into the body and lungs of the (s)he until I’d effectively destroyed both.