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He held the fret board gently in his palm as his fingers curled over the aged wood to stroke the guitar strings. Then from the base of the neck to the lower end of the headstock, his fingertips grazed the loosely tuned strings of the old acoustic. The sound of a subtle buzz was the result of his actions and as the sound reverberated in the whitewashed walls of his cramped bedroom. It echoed in the back of his mind as well. It brought him back to a time where he was even more of an amateur than he was now. It brought him back to those long sleepless nights he stayed up strumming away on the same old guitar as his younger sister listened and hummed in harmony with the simple tune. It brought him it back home. But he wasn’t home. He was far from it. One thousand one hundred and eighty-seven miles to be exact.

With a heavy sigh, he shoved aside the nearest pile of clothes on his bed knocking off a few wadded-up socks, several crumpled tees, and a pair of well-worn jeans of questionable cleanliness onto the floor. He then sat down on the mattress and kicked off his scuffed-up sneakers, sending them halfway across the room and onto the only known clean lump of laundry. He grumbled at the sight, but did nothing to better the situation. Instead, he flopped down on his back and stared at the ceiling.