My Guitar is still weeping...and it's annoying

I leap out of bed onto a glass floor surrounded by the boundless universe with shooting stars, planets, and other outer heaven sights I dreamt of admiring through telescopes. The rest of my room is dry concrete painted a rainbow of colors and dressed in ribbons, streamers, confetti, and silly string. I shrug and balance on the balls of my feet towards my closet and two ballet dancers in oversized black denim overalls sashay and pirouette out of it to reveal that all my outfits are winged. 

“Good morning, Keith.”, they beam and twirl out of my door covered in confetti.

In my plaid board shorts, a plain white t-shirt, and corduroy sneakers, I float into the bathroom where a bare-faced gremlin is applying makeup blindfolded in front of a camera. 

“Keith, you’re in my shot, hon.”, the gremlin claims mid-blush application. 

I stretch my fingers towards my toothbrush and toothpaste and they pop into my hands as I glide downstairs into some art-deco coffee shop. A princess dressed in a black and white tracksuit greets me with a kiss on each cheek and a seat at a table in my living room. My plants are sprawling, wrapped around pillars around the shop, my couches are now a coffee-colored leather seating eight and everything from fairies to shinobi are talking each other up or using my wi-fi. 

“You’re early, Keith. Are you getting the usual?” Her glowing face is held up ear to ear by her equally glowing smile and her laced gloves press my cheeks together when I nod yes. 

“You are adorable! One spinach omelet and coffee with three sugars coming right up!” While the princess skates away, I call for her and she poofs before me in some sort of gun smoke cloud. 

“Yes, love?” She blinks eerily, one eye out of sync with the other one but her face maintains a warm, genuine feel. 

“I never got your name, Miss...” I state this seriously but casually to avoid witnessing or encouraging a dip in her mood. She sits on my lap and wraps her arms around me as if it’s supposed to jog my memory. When she realizes that I’m being honest, she clears her throat, presses her lips to my ear and whispers, “Lorraine.”

After she pulls away, I glance up at her in tears that literally dance off my face and dive into a nearby napkin. Lorraine is the name of my girlfriend who was murdered in cold blood five years ago during a much-needed vacation in Mykonos. Random guy who tailed us and failed to push us one of his lousy phones snuck into the resort and stabbed her while she was asleep and I was stargazing. 

Now that I study the bridge of her nose, the round jaw, the glistening blue pools in her eyes and the remainder of her face, it has to be her. At least, from a physical perspective, it’s her. To be positive she is who she claims to be, I have to grill her a bit. 

“Sorry, I’m in disbelief right now. I have to ask you a few questions for the sake of clarity.”, I sigh, combing through my hair with my stiff fingers begging to be cracked. 

“For the sake of clarity.”, she repeats robotically, her eyes never leaving mine. 

“What is Lor- your favorite food?” I scan her face while I ask to identify a lie or truth.

“Spinach risotto.” That’s an easy question. Anyone who knows her is aware of this and suddenly, all the patrons direct their attention to us. I’m in the unfortunate position of having a diverse audience of characters but once I have my spinach omelet and coffee in front of me, I inhale and return to center. 

“What is your favorite song?” I notice “Lorraine” skitter her fingers across her neck like spiders when I ask her a question and I can’t tell whether she’s wrestling with nerves, lying or nerves from thinking of lying. 

“Better off Blue than With You by Beeker Street and the Deplorables.” She whistles it at work, on the train, and everywhere else public if she isn’t belting it in the shower at home. That’s another easy one. Everyone around her sighs relief and I begin to have suspicions. 

“What is your biggest pet peeve?” There she goes skittering her fingers across her neck again. Maybe this will throw her off. 

“Your fingers seem nervous. Does that mean you are too?” Coffee quits being poured, music quits being played, everything is silenced except for me and the woman who identifies herself as Lorraine. 

“I do this whenever I get nervous. Remember? Ms. Loehman was grading our history exams and I was so nervous to death, I tapped my fingers on my neck.” She’s not wrong. That’s something much harder than knowing songs or food. 

“Plus,”, she sighs, shifting herself on my lap “my biggest pet peeve came from childhood when my mom promised me I’d get to see my dad before he passed away in the hospital but she abandoned me the same week. An empty promise is my biggest pet peeve.”

I can’t argue with that. Her mother literally abandoned her in their house to live in Vegas with a businessman who made companies that swallowed other companies doing honest work. Since then, anyone who made her an empty promise got on her nerves and was promptly cut off. 

The acoustic guitar in my closet by the door swings it open and weeps, sweeping its strings every time tears touch them. I embrace her and everyone weeps and sings along with the guitar while it plays a beautiful song, stopping every minute to wipe off tears. People rise to their feet and slow dance with each other, with tables, chairs, brooms, and other inanimate objects in the house that burst with life. 

When everyone clears out of my house, Lorraine and I continue to enjoy our time together and that guitar hasn’t quit weeping. 

“It’s not cute anymore”, we mention in unison. 

It must not be able to hear us over the tears and we roll our eyes while it proceeds to play a tearful song the way it’s done for the past three weeks. We grunt on our way upstairs and shut our doors tight in hopes that by daylight tomorrow, the guitar will have shut down its crying festival.