With a cautious clatter, two old ladies slowly hobbled down the middle of Wall Street, shadows long in the lateness of the day, heat boiling up off of the filthy asphalt pavement as they leaned on each other, walkers long-abandoned among the rubble and overturned cars.

“Well,” Aoutef said in a high-pitched, cracked voice, “If the young ones won’t do it, it’s up to us, Goldie.”

Goldie stumbled, swollen ankles barely able to support her, “I still don’t know, I still… why ask me? You people do it all the time.”

Aoutef leaned against the burned out shell of a city bus, trying to steady herself as Goldie clutched at her, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Goldie held onto her long-time despised neighbor, panting, “I mean, Bethlehem, Tel-Aviv, boom, all that nonsense in the Holy Land, bang, arms and legs all over the place; filthy terrorists!”

“Freedom fighters!” Aoutef did a slow motion scramble, taking Goldie’s hand in hers as the two little old ladies; Aoutef in her burqua, Goldie in her wedding dress, saved for the day she was to be buried long stored away in the back of a closet, negotiated themselves past an overturned Bradley, “Pfui, sooner or later you people will…” The little brown-skinned woman paused, sweat dripping off her nose, “Ohhhhhhhh, Goldie, I see it…”

They cowered in the sunset, trash and broken glass at their feet, hugging each other in determination and terror.

“Sun’ll be down soon.”

“That’s when THEY come out…”

“Don’t say it, Goldie, I can’t stand…” Aoutef put one veined hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.

“Shhhhhh, Aoutef, don’t be a silly. It’s for the grandbabies we’re doing this…”

Goldie squirmed, sweat oozing between her and one of the two dynamite belts that her neighbor’s nephew Hossam'd left unwatched in the back seat of the taxi he’d driven before THEY had come last week, ruining everything.

This morning, Aoutef had approached her in the shelter in among the women, the children, the old, and the dying.

Her plan was simple. If the young men and women were out fighting, why not spare some of them? They were old, they’d lived, and everyone was needed.

Anyway, it was better than just SITTING there, waiting for THEM to break down the steel doors of the bank vault that had been converted into a safe haven, holes drilled for air, failing generators pumping in what fresh air they could…

Goldie, who had never gotten along with Aoutef, I mean, a burqua in New York? Feh! in the thirty years they’d shared adjoining apartment walls, agreed- slipping away together, creeping along the broken pavements, the shell holes, past bloated bodies, pausing to open cans of food that they’d found spilled out of shop windows onto the rubble-strewn sidewalks, dented, but still good, drinking water from puddles by broken water mains, avoiding places where entire blocks of buildings had been bombed in the early days of the attack – until they reached Wall Street where the biggest infestation had been cordoned of where they managed to slip past the sentry posts set up by surviving Crips and Bloods.

Huddled behind a mound of broken pavement beside her neighbor , as a gangbanger sauntered past, deadman switch rigged grenade in one hand, cell phone in the other, Goldie shook her head. Aoutef might be nuts, but she was right – things had become so UNTIDY since THEY came. At first the Government had sent in troops, but THEY swarmed over the tanks that rumbled through the city, dragging the men and women out of them and down under the street for Jehovah only knew what. So the planes had come, roaring low over the horizon, dropping loads of bombs– feh! No good, that! So the soldiers had left, putting up barricades, patrolling the edges of the city, shooting anybody who came out for fear that they were carrying… those horrible THINGS…

Inside them…

...leaving the old, the young, women, children, the unwanted, those who couldn’t flee when it all started, trapped – this Goldie had heard on the little battery powered transistor radio she found in the front hall closet of her now abandoned apartment.

So now here she was, in the remains of the city that had seen her birth, Bat Mitzvah, her wedding, her first child, her second child, her Sol’s funeral – with the neighbor who was always complaining about her cat peeing on her begonias to the landlord, about to take on the things that were killing her beloved New York.

Meshuggenah - all of it!

(But why sit and wait to be dragged down in a hole when you can do something, your own little mitzvah to the world, to the grandbabies whose tattered photos nestled safely in her handbag?)

“Wait, my feet...” Aoutef clutched Goldie’s arm; the two little old ladies collapsed onto a heap of empty garbage cans, panting.

“Just a little further, and it won’t matter any more.” Goldie adjusted her veil, which was now red with brick dust, “Oy vey, what a day for such undertakings!” she blew her nose on the hankie she had worn tucked into her cleavage the day of her wedding. Her grandmother had brought it all the way from the Old Country. Aoutef held out one trembling swollen-knuckled brown hand; Goldie passed it over.

Aoutef dabbed her eyes, “Hossam, he says there’s a big pool of diesel from where a truck was knocked over, it’s a simple thing…”

From behind thick glasses, Goldie and her neighbor locked eyes, silently helping each other to their feet as the endless street faded into the blue of a New York summer twilight.

After a while, “Are you sure this’ll work?”

“My nephew’s the best.”

“Feh, if you say so…”

…

…

…

“Are you sure?

“Yes!”

…

…

…

“It’s for the grandbabies. I’ve lived a good life.”

From Aoutef’s tattered burqua came a snort.

Goldie glared at her.

…

…

…

“I smell them, nasty dirty THINGS.”

…

…

…

“I can’t do this, Allah, I can’t…”/“I can’t do this, Jehovah, I can’t…”

…

…

…

“It’s for the grandbabies.”

…

…

…marinated in diesel, the invader’s nest stank, causing both old women to wheeze, “All we have to do is let them see us.”

“Oh Aoutef, don’t remind me!”

“Hossam put timers on these belts. Hold still Goldie while I turn yours on…”

“Ohhhh… Ohhhhhh… Aoutef… it’s THEM.”

…

(“It’s now or never.”)

…

Two elderly neighbors clutched each other tight as Venus emerged overhead, the timers on their dynamite belts silently counting down beneath their loose clothing…

…

…

There was a rattle, and a clatter as they disentangled from each other long enough to take off their hearing aids and glasses, to shatter on the broken pavement…

…hunched, long-headed shapes shot out, grabbing them…

…

…

(“Inshallah!”)

…

…

…frail hands clutching at the night air…

(“Israel!”)

…

…

…skinny legs in torn flesh colored stockings feebly kicking…

…

…

…a few seconds later a Crip sentry paused in the midst of barricading himself in for the night, only to gape as a mushroom cloud of burning diesel drifted redly up into the sky, followed by a concussion that shattered what windows that were left to shatter…

…

…the battle of New York had begun.