The Little Guitar Man

By Katie Heffring

I went into my kitchen for breakfast and when I opened my bag of oatmeal, I found a little man sitting in it.

I tried to take him out, but he bit my finger.  So I said, “Hey Man, I don’t have anything else to eat for brekky.  What are you doing in there, anyways?”

The little man told me, quite clearly, that he had been looking for his guitar.  He lost it several hours ago and was determined to take any lengths necessary to find it.

“But why would it be in my oatmeal?”  I asked.  He told me, quite clearly, that he had looked everywhere he could possibly think of and since the bag was left opened, he thought he’d take a look.

“Any luck?”

The poor little man shook his head.  He looked more than disgruntled, so I offered to help him.  After hours and hours of searching every nook and cranny in the apartment, I suggested, “Perhaps we could just get you a new one?”  But he nearly fainted at the thought.

He told me that his heart and soul were in that guitar.  We rested side-by-side on my bed and looked to the gold coloured ceiling for inspiration.  Suddenly, he shot up into sitting position.

“What’s that?”  He asked pointing to a black guitar shaped bag leaning against my bedroom wall.  “It’s my guitar,” I said and began to open the case to reveal that which was inside.  Slowly, I took out my classical guitar.  Without looking at the little man, I plucked a few strings, but the guitar emitted no sound at all.  I tried playing a few chords, but nothing. No sound!

I looked at the little man.  His eyeballs widened so much that I thought they were going to pop out of his head.  His mouth moved, but no words came out.  I wiggled my ears and opened and closed my jaw, thinking that maybe my ears needed to be popped or they were plugged or something making it difficult to hear (sometimes this happened).

The guitar sat on my lap as I tried to rectify my hearing.  But just then, the little man jumped up onto the guitar and slipped into the sound hole.  “Hey!” I shouted, “What are you doing?”

A voice rang out, quite clearly, “Thanks! You found my guitar!”

I put my eye up to the sound hole to try to see him, but he was well hidden.  “Don’t worry about me,” he yelled, “Try playing your guitar again!”

This time, when I plucked a few strings, the most beautiful tone sounded, and when I strummed a few chords, the most beautiful harmony resonated.

“Huh,” I smiled.