He closed his auburn eyes and leaned his head on the wooden headboard. His head was pounding so badly that he felt like a vein would explode somewhere inside. The white and creamy Fender was resting on his worn out jeans, his fingers caressing the strings. He could easily be a Greek sculpture, cradling the harp eternally. His feet moved to the rhythm of his soul, while his black socks devoured the rays of the sun that were penetrating the room. Legions of golden dust were dancing near the windowsill, each one of his breaths vacuuming hundreds of them.

“Ver kats, yeghbayr im, yergs kisem qez het,

Ver kats, yeghbayr im, tsavy kisenq mek tegh.”

His muscles flexed and relaxed as he played different chords with his left hand, the metal strings carving tiny trails of skin on his fingertips, giving birth to small mountaintops made out of endless paths.

From behind his beard, pale lips came closer, cracks becoming thicker and flaking skin becoming whiter. His soul was whistling now. His head was pounding still.

A bowl of strawberries stood on the table next to the bed, a banana peel resting lifelessly near an empty cup of whiskey and coke. Metal rings were scattered aimlessly across the oceans of the crimson sofa. The hangers near the mirror were empty: he didn’t bother taking off his leather jacket.  

“U qez tanem mer sarerov,

U qez tanem mer lernerov,

Tsuyts tam yerkinqy mer,

Masisy alerum,

Tuny, hayreni mer tuny.”

The transparent yellow pick in between his right thumb and index finger had “Harley Davidson” written across it. It slipped through his fingers and fell into oblivion as he did in many of his dreams. He didn’t bother looking for it and sat up, putting the guitar on the bed, handling it with more caution and care than he handled his lungs.

A box out of his left pocket. Black plague disguised as white remedy between his right index and middle fingers. His grandfather’s ring with a big red stone on his index finger. A click. A fire. Smoke rising up to the lamp that’s hanging from the ceiling with no light bulb.

He scratched his chin through the beard and stared at the burning cigarette.

His mind was blank now. In the blankness,

the sound of his hair and the razor;

the cold water dripping down his fingertips, running through the mountaintops;

the buzzing of the trimmer and the shape of his bald head in the mirror, the shape he hadn’t seen nor had the desire to;

the silence in the loud goodbyes from the crowd;

the symphony of the engine and turning wheels;

the emptiness of waving hands and missing pairs of eyes.

Whistling filled the room, accompanying the smoke up to the ceiling. He used to whistle at night when his body was freezing and his face was naked to the world. He used to send home journals three years ago, filled with screenplays, comics, and all sorts of superhero sketches, things he had fallen in love with as a kid with golden hair falling down to his back. The memories flooded his exhausted consciousness as rogue waves, devouring the remote flickers from the lighthouse and conjuring up the demons from beneath.

The smoke stopped rising.

One by one, he murdered the strawberries with his teeth. His teeth were crooked but his smile never was.

“Ver kats, yeghbayr im, nor orn e artnatsel,

Ver kats, yeghbayr im, nor kyanqn e shunch arel.”

730 days in the first and the last.

63072000 seconds in bullets flying over his head.

There was a logo patch with a slogan on his jacket. He took it off and returned to the embrace of the endless possibilities that the guitar offered. When the trails on his mountaintop fingertips met the circular grooves on the neck of his first love, the bullets ceased to fly, the monsters sunk back into the depths, and the flickers from the lighthouse grew stronger.

“Ver kats, yeghbayr im, zangery chen lrel,

Ver kats, yeghbayr im, mer yergy chenq grel,

Kisat yergid nor togh telem,

Kisat zarkid nor zark dsulem.”