My brother walks into the kitchen and turns the light off. The phone rests against my empty cup. It’s the only brightness in the room. How come you don’t play guitar anymore, he asks. He doesn’t know that I enjoy the quiet intimacy of being left alone in the dark as he returns to his video game. He doesn’t realise I only owe myself an answer. I used to be the kind of person who had a sketchbook. I liked what that said about me: that I had an itch to capture my world onto paper, steady hands on a fine-tip pen, gluing down ticket stubs and receipts. Now, when my hands move, it’s because I’m reaching. For my phone. For my computer. I do nothing but hit space bars, creating chasms—the drop between train platforms. I’m forgetting the buzz of chugging aimlessly on summer afternoons, my palms cradling rhythm, muffling strings. I’m forgetting the rough twinge on my fingertips when I used to plunk out something new, only to pause at a knock from a curious brother. I’m forgetting the care of perfecting birthday cards, watercolours bleeding into the callouses on my hands. One day, I’d like to think that the train will reverberate down the tracks, rumbling through the silent, empty space like a power chord. My hands will close around the instrument again. The feeling will return.
