Trashed And Scattered

The dark room was a mess. Papers were scattered around the floor, along with pens and some pictures. All of the instruments were out of order, sitting in the wrong place. CDs were found everywhere, some broken and some have survived. Posters were hanging loosely on the walls, threatening to fall. Awards were taken off the shelf and lost in among the disorder, as if too ashamed to be shown.

A person was sitting on the side of the room, back resting on the wall behind him, knees raised nearly to his face and a broken guitar leaning to his body.

“Zacky, come here I’ve gotta show you somethin’,” a tall man shouted suddenly and walked out of the room filed of people.

“Coming,” a green eyed person, Zacky, answered and walked over to the direction he thought his friend was at. A few steps later, he realized he had no idea where his friend went to.

“Jimmy?” Zacky asked loudly, confused at his friend’s disappearance, but definitely not surprised.

“Over here,” the tall person, Jimmy, answered loudly from the back of the room.

Once spotting his friend, Zacky started walking towards the tall figure.

The room around him contained around twenty people, every single one of them a dear friend of his. Every single one of them came to hang out at Jimmy’s house with some of the greatest people in the world. They liked doing that, especially after tours, it always felt nice.

Making his way through his friends, Zacky finally reached his friend. Quickly after, Jimmy placed his long, thin, tattooed arm over his shorter friend’s shoulder and started walking quickly into a close hallway; almost too quick for Zacky to follow.

“I’ve got something for you,” the taller man said as he took his arm off his friend’s shoulder. “Just wait here,” he said, and disappeared into a room at the end of the hallway.

Smiling slightly at his silly friend, Zacky turned around to look back at the rest of the people. Everybody were drinking and having fun – just like every single night at Jimmy’s.

A few seconds later, Jimmy was back already, holding something shiny in his hand.

“Saw it the other day and thought of you,” the tall guy said, causing Zacky to turn around. “So , you know, I had to buy it and give you it,” he added, and handed the shiny object to his friend.

In Jimmy’s hand was resting a brand new, beautiful, left handed guitar. Every single part of it, except for the neck, was a mirror in a shade of dark, dirty yellow. The strings were perfect and inviting to strum on. The neck seemed lovely and perfect for anybody’s fingers. Everything about it looked perfect.

“Dude, this is a costume guitar,” Zacky said, taking the guitar off his friend’s hand and looking at it admiringly.

Jimmy just smiled in respond and then walked back to where everybody else were, patting his shorter friend on the back as he passed by him.

The dark haired person let his legs slowly slide down until they met with the floor completely. Rubbing his eyes to make sure any trace of tears was gone, he slowly looked around himself, to see the mess he had done.

Everything that valued to him most was in that very room of his house. And he had destroyed it.

Next to him was resting a shattered guitar.

Zacky closed the door behind him as he entered the room. There was no need to turn on the lights, it was still early and the sun provided enough light through the window.

He sat on a chair next to a table that was placed on the side of the room and looked around. It had been weeks and months since he entered this room. It was his favorite room of the house, but he couldn’t find the courage to walk in there, not any earlier than that day. It was simply too hard.

Everything in that room was about music, and everything about music made him think of Jimmy.

There was a huge pile of CDs just hanging on the desk and there was his collection of guitars all around the room, there were all sorts of prizes and awards that Avenged Sevenfold ever won and there were posters and painting that he has gotten over the years, there was a computer for music editing and there was a stereo to play some music, there were papers and pens for writing and there were all sort of random instruments around the room.

It felt wrong being there. It felt weird.

Every single CD reminded him of his absent friend, and it felt like a knife in his heart. All of the guitars on the wall made him think of the live shows and time they spent together on tour, and it made him feel so empty. He missed these times, dearly. Every day he wished for just another chance to play again with his friends, just one more show.

It made him feel sick to be in that room alone; a room where he would usually create and play music at, a room where he spent hours and hours with Jimmy, trying to get things just right.

In a way, he felt guilty. He felt guilty for being there. He felt guilty for breathing and living and eating and feeling. He felt guilty, because he knew that his best friend is no longer able to do any of this, and there is absolutely nothing he could do about it. And it made him so angry. It made him feel empty.

Zacky looked down at his hands with a sigh. There were numerous of cuts in both his palms, tiny pieces of mirror deep down in the wounds. There was dry blood around every cut and every wound, and each of them was aching.

Trying to not hurt his hands any further, he slowly stood up, looking around the room.

His eyes were locked with one certain guitar, the latest addition of his collection. He has been staring at it blankly for over an hour already, the pain in his stomach growing bigger by the second.

Suddenly, he couldn’t take it any longer. He couldn’t just sit there in silence doing nothing. He wanted to die, to scream, to destroy the world, to do something. He just couldn’t accept the fact that there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do.

Getting up angrily, he looked around the room again. There was nothing for him to look in there, nothing that would make him feel any better. Yet, he didn’t leave. He wanted to stay – he wants to be able to.

Zacky walked over to the new mirror guitar, avoiding his own reflection in it, and grabbed it by the neck. It was still so new, so pure, so clean – so unplayed. He had barely gotten the chance to play with it.

He walked back to the chair and sat down, the guitar on his lap. For a few seconds he just sat there, trying to hold the tears. Then, closing his eyes, he placed his fingers on the neck, feeling the cold strings press against his soft fingers. It had been a while since he felt guitar’s strings.

Picking a pick off the desk next to him, he started gently strumming the guitar, listening to the familiar, yet strange, sound. It has been a while since the last time.

Quickly, his playing turned faster and filled with anger, letting out all of his frustration into the music. But it sounded awful. It sounded absolutely awful and it made him even angrier.

And at a moment of anger, at a moment of frustration and sadness, Zacky got up and threw the guitar away. Tears followed soon after.

His eyes spotted a pen on the floor, and he knelt down to grab it. Then he sat down again.

He pulled the shattered guitar closer to him, and placed it on his lap, still holding the pen in his left palm. His hand was shaking, and his breathing was heavy. And the pen in his hurt hand was only causing more pain. But he didn’t care about it, he didn’t care about any of it.

With a shaking hand, Zacky quickly scribbled something on the guitar.

After a few minutes of a shameless cry, he walked over to his precious guitar and grabbed it by the neck. This guitar had meant so much to him – it was one of the very last things he had received from his beloved friend.

Anger still pulsing through every single one of his veins, Zacky smashed the beautiful, nearly harmless, guitar onto the floor. And then the table, and the wall, and another wall, and into other guitars and posters and awards and everything that had ever meant anything to him, everything he had ever loved.

Things started falling off their place, lose order and get damaged. But he didn’t stop.

He didn’t stop when his well deserved awards fell off the shelf, he didn’t stop when his collection of guitars started losing balance, he didn’t stop when his CDs were thrown to the floor and he didn’t stop when his hands started bleeding.

He didn’t stop until his guitar, his most important guitar, was completely, absolutely ruined.

Only then he let it drop to the floor, and let himself burst into tears again.

Following his guitar, Zacky fell to the floor as well. And he cried, letting all of his emotions out.

He stayed down for hours.

Finally, hours after entering the room, Zacky left.

The room was a mess, and he knew he would have to take care of that soon. He knew he would have to fix some things and put everything back in place. But not at that time, not at that day, not at that moment – there was no point for it; there was no need for it.

As he left the room, he locked the door behind him, knowing it would have stayed locked for at least a few days.

One message was left in the room.

“I love you Jimmy. FOREVER.”