In a cluttered bedroom, filled with the detritus of an equally cluttered mind. The flotsam of thoughts are scribbled down on tissue, napkins, half torn note pads, a space of wall between posters of faraway places and stark faces. And beneath them, a battered sofa, a frail coffee table, an unmade bed, an amp with a submerged lead running into the body of semi acoustic guitar in sunburst red, wearing the scars of a life lived between small stages and cold practice rooms. Amongst it all she sits, leaning into the screen of her laptop, half chewing, half tapping a broken pencil, humming fragmented chords, buffeted by will and whimsy. At one moment she is in intently focused, making changes, adding layers, rephrasing. In the next she is blankly staring at a crack between the floorboards as if it might open at any second and swallow everything in an enormous, foul smelling gulp.

She is twenty eight, turning twenty nine in two weeks. Little more than a year away from thirty. Her hair is dyed black and rough, hidden in a malaise of sleep and hairspray. Her face is narrow and pale. Long lashes buck untamed from dark brown eyes. Her nails are chipped and neglected with the remnants of light blue polish still grimly clinging on in patches. She wears loose fitting, grey sweat pants and a white t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of The Rolling Stones. She leans back into the sofa, pulling out a battered pillow from behind her and squeezing it tight into the hollowness of her abdomen. Her gaze drifts over to the window, outside a cold, grey day is fading into darkness. Sickly yellow street lights blink on, seeping in though the thin gauze and coating everything they touch in weak, bacterial hues.

The shadows thicken, she blinks as her pupils expand, allowing in more gloom, filtering in memories, visions, rays of hope like slivers of glass, beautiful to behold but when held too long and squeezed too tight become sources of pain until they are finally expelled. With the dark comes the cold, sending occasional shivers to splash against her skin. She stands and rummages through a pile of clothes in the bottom of her wardrobe, extracting a black hoodie. She swims inside it and is forced to roll back the sleeves allowing her hands to be free. When she sits back down she brings the guitar with her. It’s broad, red, body is embraced. She wishes it was hers, sometimes thinks of it as hers, holds it, traces its scars, finds the first chord and grazes her way down the strings as if it were hers but it’s not. She forgets the past, the day, the moments just lived. She closes her eyes and throws ropes around the turmoil inside. Her fingers are molten iron, soft, caressing yet housing a will capable of tearing through the bedrock of emotions bottled within her flesh. She gives over to the song and disappears.