Reay Jespersen

She sat in the empty subway car, chastising herself for riding it so late at night. No one should, in this city going to Hell in a hand basket, but particularly at her age? What had she been thinking?
Still, the ladies of her Bridge Club had insisted there was no other way than to hold the games at Meredith’s house this week – their usual community centre meeting spot closed for renovations as it was – so Edna had little choice but to travel across the city to attend.
Oh, she could have taken a taxi, of course, but at the prices they charged? She could get a month’s worth of food for her tabby, Mr. Pickles, for what a taxi would cost to drive her a half hour away.
No matter, she thought, looking at her reflection in the window beside her and adjusting her flowered hat. She was here now. No use crying over spilled milk. Or at least, Mr. Pickles certainly wouldn’t be upset if such a thing were to happen.
The subway pulled into the next station, which Edna was quietly relieved to find seemingly empty. Only one more station to go. But as the subway eased to a stop, her smiling, shrunken apple face dropped when she saw a group of young men gathered a short ways down on the platform, talking and laughing about something. Hoodlums, the lot of them, with their long or bed-tossed hair and unshaven faces, dressed in their undershirts and worn dungarees. Two of the five wore baseball caps, one normally but the other, particularly brazen one wearing his cap backwards. Backwards! It was like the lot of them were raised in a barn. And, as was just her luck, the whole braying pack of them herded onto the far end of her subway car. Pursing her lips, Edna shifted uncomfortably.
The doors closed and the subway lurched forward, pulling out of the station, and still the hooligans kept up their shenanigans. As the subway plunged into the tunnel, one of the group facing Edna gestured to her with his head. The others became quiet, all turning to look at her. They looked at each other again. The one turned directly away from her said something, and the others nodded and laughed darkly; a sound without humour. Edna had a bad feeling about this.
Her suspicion was confirmed when the same one spun on his heel and started making his way toward her. The rest of his filthy pack followed him, those not busily making themselves look nonchalant instead sporting insipid grins on their faces.
Edna distracted herself, looking around at anything except them, until they stopped a few paces from her and stood there. Head turned to the side, Edna finally peered at them, darting her eyes to them and away again. She sighed deeply and finally looked them straight on.
“What?” She snapped.
“Your purse,” the lead hood smiled.
“What about it?” Edna asked, unfamiliar with mugging protocol.
He looked at his companions, some chuckling at his bemused expression. He turned back to Edna, serious. “What about it is I want it.”
“Well, you can’t have it,” she said.
His face betrayed a moment of surprise before it was replaced by anger and he started a slow, purposeful strut toward her. “I don’t think you get it,” he said, now almost on top of her.
“No, deary,” Edna said, her most innocent grandmother face on. “You don’t get it.” She snapped to her feet, throwing an empty hand toward him, and he became a two-dimensional form of pure light before disappearing.
His dumbfounded friends stood wide-eyed and slack-jawed where they stood. “So,” Edna said to them, cocking her head slightly and smiling. After a single, pounding heartbeat, they broke and ran back down the length of the subway, clambering over each other to get away. She tut-tutted them. So predictable.
She threw another open palm at one, and he shrank into nothingness, even as she gestured to the next and he was sucked into a door-shaped portal that opened and closed in the blink of an eye. She pulled up her sagging knee-high stockings and set out with purpose after the remaining two.
A gesture of her hand, and the second last of them disappeared into a miniature, all-consuming tornado which began at his feet and swept up his body and over his head.
The remaining hoodlum slammed into the door between subway cars, frantically pulling at the handle, which found itself suddenly locked. He turned around to find some other way out and stopped in his tracks when he saw Edna standing an arm’s reach away. Hyperventilating, he backed against the door, looking around for some salvation; a desperate, caged animal.
His breathing became more shallow as she approached, this smiling old lady no taller than his chest.
“Wh-… what are you?” He strained.
“Irked,” she said with a quick nod. She levelled a finger at him. “And…” she touched his stomach, with a high-pitched, “Boop!” He turned into confetti and made a small pop as he weakly blew apart and drifted to the subway floor.
Edna brushed bits of confetti off herself as the subway pulled into her station. The doors opened. She adjusted her flowered hat and stepped out onto the platform, turning toward the escalator. Toward the bus, and Mr. Pickles, and home.
Hell in a hand basket, she thought to herself. The city was getting so bad a demi-god couldn’t even feel safe on the subway any more.