Chimpanzini Bananini hadn't slept in thirty-three years.
Not really.
Sleep was a scam. A lullaby invented by angels to keep your guard down while devils rifled through your soul. So instead, he chewed bananas laced with prophecy, whistled to the moon, and bargained with the dark between stars.
And tonight?
He was in debt.
Again.
The alley was narrow and pulsing.Not with life. Not with rats.With heartbeat.
The bricks breathed.The shadows watched.And the rain didn't fall — it hovered.
"You're late," said the devil.
She was dressed in latex rosary beads and a halo of flies. Her eyes were censored, her voice smelled like velvet ash, and she smoked a cigarette that wrote names in the air as it burned.
Chimpanzini grinned.
"I brought snacks."
He tossed her a banana. It exploded into gold dust.
She licked the air and smiled back.
"You want a memory, don't you?"
"Always."
"But which one this time?"
"The one I lost when I made the last deal."
"...Ah. That one."
"Yeah. That one."
She stepped forward. Her feet left stigmata in the concrete.
"You know the price."
"Name it."
"You'll forget something else instead."
"Fine."
"Something important."
"Fine."
"Something warm."
"That's illegal."
"You're illegal."
They laughed.
They kissed.
The alley screamed.
And then it was done.
Chimpanzini blinked.
His left hand was missing two fingers.
His wallet was full of fish bones.
And the devil was gone.
But in his other hand was a folded page — ripped from the Score of the World's End. Stolen directly from Bombombini.
A verse.
A coda.
A name.
"Lirilì sings not alone.""The silence sings back.""If they kiss, the world ends — but if they don't…"
The rest was burned.
Chimpanzini squinted.
"…Wait, what?"
But it was already fading from his mind.
He reached into his pocket for a banana.
It was gone.
In its place — a small, warm hand.
He looked down.
A child stood beside him. A girl. Barefoot. With eyes that looked like every ending at once.
She whispered:
"You traded her."
Chimpanzini staggered.
"Who?"
She only smiled.
Far away, in the catacombs beneath Saint Mark's Basilica, Tralalero shivered violently.
She couldn't remember who she used to dance for.
She had forgotten her sister's name.