The End of An Era

The Beginning of An Era

Annie Ortega learned to play guitar passionately in her comfort zone at seventeen. She likes being alone, and she enjoys being focused on what she enjoys doing, but not with her nosy sister in the background, who is frequently causing her annoyance. She is always distracted. Her sister, Regina, a petite 15-year-old with a wavy fringe who never misses a day of hair-blow-drying care, always gets in the way of her solitude, through which her intrusive thoughts creep in every time she feels interrupted. Out of spite, she still enjoys strumming chords over and over until one loose (E) guitar string was disentangled from its thread, and it snapped on her left ring finger and the sight of an open wound makes her dizzy and nauseous. At that moment, it bleeds red and hurts like hell. She cannot handle seeing the graphics of external bleeding. It upsets her and gets mad at Regina to the point that the boiling point makes her outrageously willing to destroy the already damaged guitar with a loose string. Annie, since she was young, had felt the need to destroy everything that had already been destroyed, whether it was done by her younger sister, or by anyone; she wanted to be the only one that needed to finish off every bit of the damage, because she always felt relieved when she was the one to accomplish the destruction.

During this time, pain only makes things worse. Still enduring the pain of the sudden guitar string snap. "I had the most amazing day of my life here alone, Regina! Why can't you knock on my door first before entering my room?" Annie asked. "I live here, too!" Regina replied sarcastically. "Watch your mouth, kid. Or you'll find yourself buried somewhere far away from here, sooner or later..." said Regina while grinning. "That's not a funny joke, Annie. Why would you say such a thing in front of your younger sister?" Regina asked, feeling scared at the moment. "MOM!!! Annie is having a good time again. As she used awful language, I couldn’t believe every single word she would say to me." She screamed as if to get her mom's attention from the kitchen doing mom's thing. "What are you two doing up in there? We're having a salad down here in a bit. You guys better go downstairs before I drag myself up. You heard me?" she shouted loudly from the kitchen.

In absolute terror, Regina stands steadily across the room, like she's about to piss herself off from Annie's intrusive, emotionless stare. Like in the movies, the characteristics of a sociopath without facial expressions give a victim a sense of creepiness, which makes her frightened about her safety a bit. But the stare did not last because Annie had already been distracted by a pulsating wound. "Get out of my room! I'm not in a mood to deal with you, not now," Annie asked her without even looking at her. She stared for a moment until Regina left the room. She noticed that the door was open a few inches. She walked over to the door and stared at it for a few seconds, then kicked it shut. Regina watched the door slam shut in shock and walked back toward her room with tears streaming down her cheeks. Meanwhile, Annie sat down on the floor, reflecting on what had just happened. "What the hell am I even doing?" aggravated by the thought of being stubborn. She picked up the guitar and tossed it at the wall. It was badly damaged by the impact, and broken pieces scattered all over the place. This was like a house of cards built only to be destroyed. She stared at the mess she had made while clenching her fist. It hurt. Her stress left her exhausted. She did not realize she had overslept and spent hours lying on the floor. Her mom knocked on her door so many times but never heard a thing as she slept. When she felt too tired to face cold reality, she never planned to wake up. As she recalls, having seen what she suffered through during her childhood, she has struggled to adjust to reality since then. She felt not fully accepted by society — people around her had not judged everyone except her. Every hate she took, she earned herself self-hatred, as she swallowed her pride with insults about her body image. She felt insecure around people at school for hating her unreasonably. A long time ago, she almost drowned. This girl named Alexa forced her head into the toilet bowl during lunch break because she was different. Everyone in the bathroom laughed it off and no one helped her, and she has hated everyone since then. Growing up, she never chose her battle, because they chose her. All that crap she took from people still caused her to lose a small circle of friends, who left her one by one. Her feelings of loss continue until the present, but at least when she's alone in her own space, she feels safe; however, loneliness slowly kills her inside, as days go by. Unlike the trees' leaves falling into their right places, she is still unsure where she belongs in this world.

The next morning was trash, it wasn’t a good morning at all for Annie. Her sleep was completely ruined by the noise outside. Things get busy fast out there, since they live in a middle-to-low-class suburb full of minimum wagers. Just imagine a residential community where every single house looks like a copy-paste duplex, built on an old swamp area that has been developed over the years. Same exact building styles, same exact flooring. The only time a house looks different is when an owner lands a high, decent-paying job—then suddenly the exterior gets upgraded, the front yard expands, and the flooring gets redone. It looks deceiving, but honestly, the community is no better than any other cheap private property. The whole place feels rushed and forced, just like the monthly dues they have to pay for "community upkeep and long-term repairs." Except everyone knows those funds are totally being pocketed for personal gain. Corruption is just brutal in this country. And the noise outside was just as brutal. Annie lay there hearing a mix of aggravating sounds—like someone welding barely ten meters away from her room. It was almost 7:00 AM, yet she could already hear that old, grumpy neighbor aggressively sweeping the asphalt as if their bad luck depended on it. But nothing compared to Regina. Right on cue, Regina started trying to open her doorknob, rattling and twisting the lever like a burglar trying to force their way in with absolutely no luck. “This little b***h…!!!” Annie uttered, sounding exactly like a witch.

She tried to go back to sleep. It was Saturday, and she remembered she had absolutely no classes on the weekends. She had it all planned out to just stay in bed and rot, but this morning was not going as planned at all.

Suddenly, her phone rang. She reached over to her bedside table to check which b***h it could possibly be. Looking down at the screen, it was an unknown caller. She had no idea who it was, and the sheer anxiety of not knowing made her heart beat faster, pounding like a drum. There was no way an important call for her would be coming in that early in the morning. She simply put the phone back in its place and stared blankly at the ceiling, zoning out for a few minutes.

Then, the phone rang again. She didn’t pick it up, just letting the ringtone play itself out for a couple of minutes. When it rang yet again, she let it slide, not having a care in the world to find out whoever that might be.

But then, her mom started knocking on the door, calling her out for breakfast. Annie still had zero energy to get up. Easily startled by the knocking, she just rolled her eyes at another disruption too early on a Saturday morning.