“Come on, babe,” said Josh, one hand on his coffee, the other upon his wife’s hand. “The city isn’t that bad.”
“I know,” said Jennie, one hand under her husband’s hand, the other on her pregnant belly. “I like it enough, I just don’t know that I want to raise a child here, is all.”
“Hey, I grew up here, and I turned out fine.”
“I know…”
“The schools are good, crime is down…”
“That’s true,” said Jennie, shifting in the wrought iron seat set up outside the café. “It’s just… I don’t know. Maybe… maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t so terrible here after all.”
Josh smiled at his wife. Jennie smiled back as her husband leaned across the matching wrought iron table to kiss her.
It was at this point that Quetzalcoatl ran down the street making extraordinarily loud whooshing noises, one arm raised as if in flight, the other holding a baby like a football.
“That…” said Josh, shaking his head, “that probably wasn’t a real…”
It was at this point that an irate mother dragging an empty carriage and screaming, “Give me back my baby,” a taxi driver hopping on one foot and screaming, “Give her back her baby,” and three policemen—two of whom appeared to have been hit in the face by an apple pie—screaming, “You god damned son of a bitch, give her back her baby,” ran down the street after Quetzalcoatl.
“OK, yeah,” said Josh, still positioned uncomfortably over the table and not quite kissing his wife. “I’ll put in for a transfer tomorrow.”