Strings.

With a gargantuan crash, the earth is shaken. Can you feel the ground beneath you shift?

Slowly, they creak to life. Groaning with disuse. Twirling and spinning. Somewhere in the distance, a record starts to play, spinning out a haunting melody that is only heard in dreams. Nightmares. Horrific daydreams.

Gracefully, they waltz, in 3/4 time. See how they spin and dance? Orbiting around one grand celestial being. Their lithe limbs brushing, skin against skin.

They spin and turn. Turning like the pages of a book. Gliding this way and that. The dance crescendos in intensity. Whirling and whipping and sliding and gliding. Scuffing the floor with their feet.

Somewhere, in the distance, something goes horribly wrong.

The record, in all its glory, cracks in two. A cacophony of noise begins to pervade the air. The neck and bell of the phonograph, with as much grace and curvature of a swan, begin to droop. Melting. Liquefying. Falling apart, bit by bit.

There has been a disharmonious dissonance in the air. Shredding, tearing, biting. Two graceful figures stumble. Their strings entwine, twisting and wrenching. They break, they unwind.

Two marionettes, used, finished, and broken, tumble to the ground.

With a gargantuan crash, the earth is shaken. Can you feel the ground beneath you shift?