One Last Show

The rain started like a whisper, then turned the city into a glass instrument—every

streetlight a trembling note. A taxi slid through puddles, neon bleeding across

its windshield, and inside, a woman pressed her forehead to the window as if

the cold could cool the storm in her chest. On the rooftop of an old cinema,

a projector spun without an audience. Its beam cut the fog and painted dust into constellations.

A man stood in that pale light, coat snapping in the wind, holding a match

he refused to strike. Below him, the marquee flickered: ONE LAST SHOW. : steam rising from

manholes, footsteps echoing like distant drums. A stray cat watched from a ledge as