This Afternoon

            Soldiers stalk the sidewalk with guns pulled close to their bodies, hands ready in their grip, in the silver light of retreating rain. Nell peers out at them. Her eyes meet the gaze of one of the men, dressed all in black, with blue eyes punched into a face half hidden by protective head gear. David has stopped talking. He scrutinizes his soup. It is black in the eatery’s broken yellow light. Nell looks at her empty bowl. The air is pregnant with the stench of burnt coffee.

            “David,” she says.

            He doesn’t look up.

            “David.”

            He raises his head. His eyes negotiate a thought.

            “What?” he asks.

            “You stopped in the middle of a sentence.”

            With a swipe of her fingers, she wipes away the film of condensation gathering on her glass.

            “What was I saying?” he asks.

            “Something about my hair.”

            “Your hair looks-it looks darker, not as blond.”

            “It’s not.”

            “Oh.”

            The soldiers peer into dusty windows. They move in a loose huddle. An old woman splits their mass. Nell can only see the woman’s feet and calves. The hem of her dress is a drab blue. As she walks, one leg seems reluctant to escape the ground. Nell looks away before the old woman slips from the dark obstruction of weapons and uniforms.

            “You didn’t think I’d care?” David asks.

            “What?”

            “Or you didn’t care if I’d care?”

            Nell looks at her hands, at the whitish patches of dry skin between each of her fingers.

            “It was just a car. It didn’t really run well,” she says.

            “You thought that decision should just be yours?”

            Nell doesn’t respond.

            “You didn’t know if I wanted it back,” David says.

            “You could have taken it whenever. It was sitting there, I needed money. I’m giving you half.”

            “Taking this doesn’t mean I agree.”

            The hinge of the door squeals open.

            Soldiers make their ingress over the pale green linoleum of the eatery. The buzz of conversation retreats. Nell watches the soldiers’ feet as they walk past the table. One set lingers a little longer than the others. The soldiers ask for biscuits. Nell hears the rustle of paper bags. The soldiers leave. Conversations start again. David stands to go and retrieves the money from the table.

            “Goodbye, Denelle.”   

                David steals harried steps over sidewalks dark with the remnants of rain. He passes between two buildings and comes out into a small square where bare, gnarled trees overlook a fountain in the shape of an elephant’s trunk. The trunk juts out of the ground as if the massive creature its attached to lies crushed under the concrete.

The fountain has been turned off since David was a child. A woman’s cry wrecks the air. David turns to see a boy, 13 or 14, running with an orange purse clutched under his arm.

The boy must not have seen the soldiers, but David sees them, blowing cigarette smoke up into the branches of a tree. One of the soldiers, a small man with a spider tattoo on the back of his hand, levels his gun. He doesn’t drop the cigarette from his mouth.

“Stop.”

The boy doesn’t stop. The soldier fires. His compatriots flinch at the burst of sound, but don’t move into action. The boy’s small body has dropped into a heap beneath the fountain.

More screams. David begins to walk quickly, trying to look like he hasn’t seen what no one could miss.

Around the corner, he ducks into an alleyway. He doubles over and vomits onto his shoes. Breath rages from his lungs and shades the air. He wipes his shoes on the building’s brick facade. There is blood on the sole of his left shoe. He feels for the money in his pocket. It’s not enough to flee the city, but the car didn’t run anyway.