No matter where Nguyệt went, she kept hearing those damn strings, as if they knew, as if they were following her to the sunset.
Her fingers flexed into the rain-humid air as ghosts o’ their past movements. She could feel the phantom touch o’ the blood as red as the sky as it sprinkled on her fingertips–long washed, but still scarred.
Then her fingers reached up to perform the last act: she grabbed the instrument round her neck & yanked the string as hard as she could till the sound reached its crescendo, & the air went out o’ the band, collapsed onto the pavement, as blue as the sky.