Bored, the boy built a rockin guitar out of Duplo.

Earlier, we’d spent some time on a tower, or castle, or some such. But the endeavor failed to capture the boy’s attention. We gave it up, let the blocks of primary red, green, yellow and blue fall where they may. I puttered around, made coffee, tossed in a load of laundry. In that time, a guitar had taken shape.

It wasn’t functional (obviously). But it looked pretty deadly. Not unlike a Warlock whose angles have been squared off and brightened up. The boy wailed on it all morning, through the afternoon and into evening; strumming invisible strings, fingering imaginary frets; riffs recreated a capella, complete with distortion and wha-wha-whammy. More than once, I saw him strike a rockin pose, check his look in the mirror.

Hell yeah, buddy boy. Rock n roll.

Blocks detach, form dissolves, what once was is no more. Smashed to bits in the early evening, burnt out before it could fade away to gather dust in a corner. Pieces gathered, tucked safely away, waiting for the latest spark to bring them out of the shadows once again. Not unlike the brief, fleeting moments of bliss a song cranked up to 10 can provide a soul, young or old. You take what you can get when you can get it and hope you can hold onto that feeling through the brow beating slog that eats up the bulk of our waking moments.

Sheldon Birnie is a writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada who can be found online @badguybirnie