The strings of fate

This is the story of how I changed the world. I didn't mean to. Not at first. It all started with a virus, and a very old guitar.

I was bored. Very bored. So bored, I jumped at the chance to do anything. People in my neighborhood had been tested positive for the virus, so I had decided to buy all my food online, and never leave the house, but that was a mistake. Or maybe it wasn't. I don;t know yet. Maybe changing the world was a good thing.

One day, a dusty old guitar was mailed to me, with only a tiny note attached:

"Sadly, your grandfather has passed away. He left this to you."

Bored as I was, I hastily unwrapped the package, and stared at the guitar avidly. Finally something to do. I rushed to my computer and searched:

How to learn guitar

I clicked on the first video I saw, and sat down, ready to play.

"Hello." the video said, "You want to play guitar? You've come to the right place. Pick up your guitar, and place it like this. The, take a look at the head. There should be six different nobs to tune your guitar. Make sure you do this before attempting to play. Each nob tightens, or loosens a string and each string is named after the pitch of the sound it makes. For example, the top string, the highest note, is called "e" because it is an "e" note, the second is "b", bec-"

But I wasn't listening anymore. I was staring at the nobs at the top of my guitar. They were named, not with "e" or "b" or even "z", but with words. The top string was "colour", the next "Time" the next "Planet" the next "place" the next "creature" the next "power" the final "reset". The "reset" string confused me, as it was an extra string, a seventh string to a six stringed guitar, but it was the last thing on my mind right now.

Unusual, I thought, maybe these are just names my grandfather liked.

I played through the strings, and listened carefully to the recording. The sounded the same, so I assumed it was in tune. I began to play the top string, "e" or maybe "colour". The tune I played was quite boring, just one note, played over and over.

Something quite weird happened, at first, I thought I was imagining it, but the colour seemed to be seeping out of everything, soon the world was slightly black and white. I stared at the guitar. This was weird. What if the whole world had changed? I glanced out of my window, and to my dismay, I saw others doing this too, looking confused. I did not just have a guitar. I had a world-changing guitar. Panicking slightly, I randomly strummed the bottom string, "reset" and just like the string described, the colour went back to normal. I glanced out of the window again, everyone was normal again. They didn't remember what just happened.

I played another tune, a sadder one. I could barely see the difference, but I was sure the cooler colours, like blue and green were stronger. A similar thing happened when the tune turned happy, the warm colours came out. Quickly, I played the reset string.

I looked at the other strings curiously. The next was "time". I played it. Nothing happened. I placed my left finger over a fret, and played again. The note was higher. I looked around, and suddenly, people were crying in their houses, and looking to the floor. I looked at the date, and I saw it was a year before now, the year my neighbor died. I moved a fret up. 2 years ago. Another fret. Three years. I played the reset note, and everything flew into place.

The next string was "planet". I played it once. Nothing happened. I played it again. Suddenly, the floor at my feet rolled over to reveal a barren, red landscape. I watched as the bright blue sky melted to black, and the stars were once again visible. We were on Mars. Another fret up. Venus. Another, Mercury. I plucked the reset string, and we flew back to Earth.

The next string was "place". I didn't see how this could be different to "planet", but still I plucked it. The minute I did, I appeared in a vast, cold wilderness. Gazing around madly, I realized I must be at Antarctica. I played the next fret. Greenland. The next. England. I plucked the reset button, and appeared back home.

The next was "creature" and I thought I had an idea of what it would be. What I didn't expect, was to end up as a tiny microbe, squishing all over the reset string. I appeared back as a human. The next fret was a tailed microbe. The next, a baby alligator type thing. The next, an actual alligator. The next, I compacted, to be shorter, and bulkier. Then I was a monkey, then a taller monkey. Then a human. Keen to leave that string alone forever, gazed at the guitar, not quite believing my eyes.

The next was "power". I played it once, and I felt small. I had not physically changed, but I felt insignificant, unimportant, irrelevant. Eager to move on and escape the horrible sensation, I played the highest not possible on that string, and immediately, I felt confident. I could do anything. I didn't have to play "reset" I could stay like this forever. No, a voice called in my head, just play the string. And I was back to normal, unsure of what to do next.

But as time went by, I began to realize that this was not some kind of crazy dream, but reality, and I began to learn the guitar. It was a stow process. Involving many resets, but finally, I could play "twinkle twinkle little star", and I realized something. Twinkle twinkle star took me to a space-like void, where I could truly fly among the stars.

As I adventured more, I learnt more songs, "Valse" taking me to an elegant ball, "the day of the match", to a football game. There were some songs that confused me, such as "habenera era" which made no sense, but turned out to be a mash of Spanish culture.

So, I guess I changed the world. The better I got, the more complex the world I created became, until finally, I could create amazing dreams, with only a piece of paper and an instrument. I changed the world. And nobody remembered once I plucked a string.