the love for the arts didn't seem to have gone extinct just yet. while it had been a while since frankie had sat down to watch a movie or to listen to one of the many records in his poor excuse of a collection, the memories of entertainment as he & the rest of humanity once remembered it were still very dear to him. he would rarely ever smuggle anything for himself, but whenever he came across a piece of that distant past, he would quietly allow himself to be selfish; like that one time he found a guitar in an abandoned neighborhood or when anna julia's familiar face arrived at the quarantine zone & he'd let her know how many of her movies he used to watch.
but as much as he liked to be an spectator, he didn't like being the actual show. taking his guitar outside only when the lights inside the apartment complex were dimmed was a precaution, but also the guilty pleasure of enjoying the couple of hours he could pretend he wasn't stuck in this placeβ let his mind wander. he is humming to himself, trying to remember the tune he had come up with a couple weeks ago, when there is a barely audible creak on the wooden floor. β i can hear you. β he stops strumming, lowering the guitar onto the ground. his gaze takes a minute to tear itself from the strings, finally falling on her. he tries to stay unamused since this isn't the first time she had caught him redhanded, but there is a ghost of a smile already making its way to his lips. β if i'd known it was you, i would've played somethin' else. β
