Mostly because I don't have a story title beginning with 'J.'
What? It's a valid reason!
Jettatura
"I don't want to be that person anymore."
He's supposed to understand her comment, spoken in a rushed exhalation. What might have been the result of excruciating contemplation arrives in the hurry of a private eureka moment.
"Who don't you want to be?"
His words are delivered in seismic cringing. This new role, with its plays at sincerity, means duty more than curiosity keeps him from executing the well-practiced bolt. Through wicked labor, the woman has delivered an epiphany and the joyous bundle carries the expectation of discussion. And he's all too aware that he has little to offer; self-realizations are a plague to those who make a bed with falsities and a blanket of deceit.
"Someone," she starts, then runs off the theological road. There's a sigh and he knows nothing good accompanies it. "Someone who can't trust her own eyes or logic. Someone who sees conspiracy in her cereal. Someone who wants to pull a gun on the screaming kid at the store."
"Tell me you didn't…"
The smile is quick, a vapor on the breeze, but it declares she's not mired too deeply in her own tragic mud. Which is good since he's no sort of savior. The moonlight has caught her just so, sharpening angles rather than illuminating. It's not a kind moon tonight and he wonders what damage its revealing glow does to him.
"This didn't used to be my job." That she handcuffs the delinquent whine is a credit to her profession.
"It's no longer a normal occupation." Not that he'd even had one, personally.
The wind shifts into something less amiable, bringing with it an excuse to depart. But for all the scolding he'll do later, his tongue separates from his instincts and darts down a divergent path.
"Who do you want to be?" Which is no way to end a conversation.
The crosswind has her smoothing ruffled hair, a regrettable tampering with nature he thinks. Not the only one worshiping distractions, she uses the activity of regaining physical poise to mask seeking mental composure.
"I think," when the chipped laugh follows, it is a sound quickly disliked. "I think I'd like to be someone who doesn't live under the jettatura."
His own laugh is nothing to enjoy. "You think you're under the Evil Eye?"
Shrugging, she turns her eyes from the sparse stars, but fails to bring them to him. So easy to read at times, she must know he'll see what the tank has done; made her believe. His hand finds her elbow but its purpose is never executed. To look at each other is to sit truth at the table. And he's rarely made room for such an unsavory guest.
Bad luck runs in threes, they say. John Scott and Cortexiphan make a fine pair. It's the third that worries him, knowing that any pattern is no friend of theirs. While Fate's never been a reliable partner, he asks it to stall the jettatura's next damnation just a while longer. She makes a move to leave, hesitates and then settles into an unexpected position before him, trading the moon for his gaze. And this is how they will conquer, he decides.
Head-on in a pair of their own.