I like the mood of this kind of story, where someone copes with an impossibly monstrous situation not by panicking, but by spending their remaining time doing the thing they'd already planned to spend their remaining time doing, because dying alone and dying along with everyone else are not so different. I dub this genre "absurdist existential heroic."
It also reminds me of the cellist of Sarajevo, and of the play /Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars/.
I like the mood of this kind of story, where someone copes with an impossibly monstrous situation not by panicking, but by spending their remaining time doing the thing they'd already planned to spend their remaining time doing, because dying alone and dying along with everyone else are not so different. I dub this genre "absurdist existential heroic."
It also reminds me of the cellist of Sarajevo, and of the play /Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars/.
The last line is perfect. Nicely set up.
Excellent! I much enjoyed the intertwining of the couple, the piano and the mysterious object(s).