“
Glory, isn’t it”—she caught her breath, waved her hand in front of her face, decoratively—“exciting!”
Alexa asked what.
“The bombing.”
“Bombing?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard. They’re bombing New York. They showed it on teevee, where it landed. These steps!” She collapsed beside Alexa with a great huff. The smell that had seemed so appetizing outside Big San Juan’s had lost its savor. “But they couldn’t show”—she waved her hand and it was still, Alexa had to admit, a lovely and a graceful hand—“the actual airplane itself. Because of the fog, you know.”
“Who’s bombing New York?”
“The radicals, I suppose. It’s some kind of protest. Against something.”
Lottie Hanson watched her breasts lift and fall. The importance of the news she bore made her feel pleased with herself. She waited for the next question all aglow.
But Alexa had begun calculating with no more input than she had already. The notion had seemed, from Lottie’s first words, inevitable. The city cried out to be bombed. The amazing thing was that no one had ever thought to do it before.
When she did at last ask Lottie a question, it came from an unexpected direction. “Are you afraid?”
“No, not a bit. It’s funny, because usually, you know, I’m just a bundle of nerves. Are you afraid?”
“No. Just the opposite. I feel…” She had to stop and think what it was that she did feel.
”
”
Thomas M. Disch (334)