Mayhem (Closing)

The sound of bottles clinking in the distance. Ysabel tips back her head the hood of her parka slumping. She doesn’t so much blow the smoke from her mouth as let it drift, tugged back as she walks on down the sidewalk. A little parking lot beside them before a pale building that says West Bearing & Parts over dark awnings. She hands the glowing cigarette to Jo, who says, “Feeling better?”

Ysabel shrugs, nods, blows the last of the smoke from her mouth. “How do you feel? Besting the Chariot, two for two?”

Looking down the empty street Jo takes a drag and shrugs. “Does that one even count?” she says, and they cross, against the light.

“You touched steel, this time,” says Ysabel. The corner before them blocked with flimsy orange fencing and a sign that says Construction Sidewalk Closed by City Permit, and up and up behind the fence a thicket of naked girders and beams. They jog across to the opposite corner as a red hand flashes, stop, stop, stop. Jo says, “Do you think he’s right, about the Duke?”

“Do you think he’s right about me?” says Ysabel. A sleekly low-slung chair isolated under a spotlight in the store window behind her.

“I don’t know,” says Jo. “What’s with the cramps?”

“I just needed fresh air, and a walk. I told you. I feel so much better now.” As Jo glaring turns to walk on, Ysabel grabs her arm, pulls her back. “I did, I really did see what will be, Jo. I saw myself as Queen. I saw you and your sword at my side.”