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It was on a morning in mid July when the old Patelco building finally crumbled. We were sitting on the rails of what was left of the credit union, watching the bulk of the old pillars shrug and tumble. It was a stocky-shouldered beast of a thing, slung low and dribbled with blocky lettering like the broad back of a football player. The sunlight, weak and watered down for mid-summer, licked the air filled with cement dust and wrenched pieces of rebar.
You rolled a cigarette with a quick wrist flick, dabbed your tongue across the line in a slow drawl and crinkled it shut between the tips of your fingers.
"So what now?"
"Fuck, man, I don't know. That was the last building in the city. Not like we used it or anything."
"No, man, I mean...isn't this supposed to be some monumental moment?" You paused, pretended to look contemplative. You tilted your head like a question tilts the end of a sentence. "I mean, the last building down. This means...something, I think."
"What?"
"Don't ask me." Flint, spark, light. The smoke eeled its way into the sharp morning. "So what now?"
I tapped the back of your head lightly in annoyance. The wind was blowing my hair into your face, swaying like gypsy hips. Coins and tassles of leaves danced around on the bellydancer's sash of hot air, and you kept smoking. In this heat. Fuck, this heat. I didn't know what was worse - this air, this hot, constant Santa Ana wind, or that alligator cold that snapped our toes in winter when me met. We had left our scarves and socks on then, when we first lay together.
"We should head back to the tent." The rail burned my palms as I slid down, offered my hand. With a crunch, our feet skid across the rubble towards home. "I mean, do you really want to stay out in this balls-ass-hot day?"
"I dunno." You stopped. Lips sliding skyward, you showed the sun your teeth with your head thrown back. I watched the wolfish grin widen. "But it's fitting, you know. Like the day we watched the world burn."
"Right. Fitting. Let's go home."