London

   April 4, 1978. 2:42 a.m. on the dot. I stand on the street corner of First and Armistad. "Where are they?!" I say to myself, huffing and puffing my cigarette like some fire-breathing dragon. There are two reasons why I'm angered by this. One, I did not dress for the elements, unless you call a pair of khaki shorts, black tank top, and flip flops in 40 degree weather appropriate. And two, the longer I hold this suspicious-looking brown sack in my arms, the more susceptible I am to losing my head.
   Literally.
  In the distance, I hear a faint crack of a whip, the laugh of a cold-hearten man, the screams of the children running to the "comfort" of their homes. "Here we go," I lightly put in a hushed tone. I walk out of the cover of night and stand in the light of day, confronting the fiend. He ceases his stride and glares at me, his pupils taking in all light like a hawk surveying his next prey.
"Mara, is that you?" he finally asks.
"Finally...-yes it's me," I reply.
"What do you want?"
"I've come to give you something."
   He stares in disbelief for a second. "No way she got it," he thinks. "It's so hard to come by."
"Bring it here, Mara, and do it now."
I defiantly step away from him, smirking with all my pride. "Over my dead body." I briskly say, then I take off in the opposite direction, laughing maniacally.
He watches me disappear off into the distance. But he, too, has a smirk on his face. Taking out his walkie-talkie, he adds "Have it your way, wicked young soul, but you just wait and see how the dark streets of London treat you."


                                                                                                                                     ~Paloma