[OPENING] Pleasant as a flare, thrust through your leg. Smile through the colour, call it decorative. [INSTRUMENTAL SHINE] [bass marimba pulse] [hammered dulcimer flashes] [euphonium enters late] Wearing coats of repressed values. Buttoned to the throat, still leaking at the seams. Stitching a future, scarred smiles. Hemmed into shape, still pulling at the thread. [INSTRUMENTAL BREAK] [marimba grows more rhythmic] [dulcimer answers in bright fragments] [euphonium holds one bruised note] Seams take away the dreams. Thread pulls tighter, memory comes apart. What was held together, it took heart. Now every little opening remembers how to part. Rupture, most splendid art. Open at the centre, finally honest. [INSTRUMENTAL SHINE] [dulcimer takes the lead] [marimba drops away briefly] [euphonium rises underneath] Crowd muses, sees abstraction, pulls the odd tooth, shatters on floor, humorous laugh track. Applause arrives late, right on cue. Didn’t miss a note. Only the body forgot the tune. [FINAL INSTRUMENTAL FLASH] [all three collide briefly] [sudden silence] Intervention. Scalpel, precise. Don’t hit the edges. Zap. [HARD END — STOP. NO REPEAT. NO EXTENDED OUTRO.]
