Stumbling closer to his body, a body that she shot, Graff noticed her kneeling legs had the texture of smooth river-stone, rounded by time and water. Nature’s craftsmanship.
First came the shot, to his ears the sound crashed through the gates of his life and left a still ringing, a quartet of strings started tuning, rising from the nothing, a perfect accompaniment to the disticulating light that strung through old glass window’s young bullet holes. The strings of light quivered as Bristol’s remaining gang departed what was left of their bullets, shaking the very foundations of Brady Milton’s small grain colored house. Only Graff could hear the quartet, the quickening of their tempo, imaginary strings in perfect synchronization with the light, vibrations of reality rarely fold so well in the auditory hallucinations of a dying boy.
A soprano joins the quartet in a high strong quiver. A sweet melody of three notes, descending down a repeating as the quartet shifts from the major first,to the major fourth, then to the minor sixth. But, the soprano’s melody was not Graff’s own. It was Brady’s voice. Rounded by time stood still, a dying suite of sound, and a transport from the inside of this grain colored house to a transient white beam of light that cabled through the window. What was it? She was calling him back. Was she? Graff could not hear words, only notes. Clear, perfectly in tune and diffused, overtoned meaning. A predilection crammed into such a small space, a perfect frequency. A Baroque progression moves from the minor sixth to the major fifth and Graff feels his only spirit lift from his body like a major fifth bud to a major first rose. Opening, beckoned to bloom, first by the cello, then, by the rest of the quartet as the players cut their strings then make them shorter, the sound goes impossibly higher. Moving their fingers up on a fret-less neck. He music’s soul pining for the major first as the rose nears the full breadth of it’s bloom. The hollow that exists between life and death is hit by a particle of white light, like a bass drum, and Graff transcends. It was, after all, her fault, entirely. But how could he blame her? The music was so beautiful. The quartet turns into an orchestra, Brady's incoherent soprano fades and dies as he does. Music is a series of tensions and releases, so is life.