prompt: style, title: going out in style in "city mouse and country mouse, in the suburbs" flash fiction

“But… we’re going out in style!” she yelled as she ran into the bedroom, a real Dapper Danielle in her very best suit, throwing her wife’s prettiest sundress onto her, even as she wept upon their bed. “Babe” the still-sobbing form pleaded, “you read the same news I did, bombs are dropping, we only have a few minutes! No way out! There’s no! Way out!” She didn’t expect her wife to react this way at all, merely straightening her tie and saying “Well, then we’ve only got a few minutes left to be glorious, kitten! If it can’t be changed, it’s our last chance to dance together and babe!” She kissed one drop away, pulled her to a stand, tugged off her tear-sopping tee-shirt and sweats, briskly slipped that crimson dress onto her, brisk yet with surprising precision, with that kind of knowledge only lovers can have of that others’ body. She then smooched that other salted cheek dry and restarted their conversation from the very top, “…we’re going out in style, baby-doll!”

So, they did. They straightened their clothes and hair in front of their gigantical standing mirror, embraced into another terrified snog, then had to fix their clothes again before they ran together down the stairs, dressed to the nines except in stocking-feet. All the world was going off around them, the whole city had heard the bombs were falling in minutes, music and fighting and sirens and newsreaders blaring out from full-blast televisions about the unavoidable deaths from above. There were flashes of light and fires and sorrows all around. But as for her and the other her, her her, they were waltzing in circles together, spinning in loops as they moved toward the riverside park one-block-and-a-half away from their home. They were kissing, they were singing together off-key over the din of the madness and sadness and fears. They spun together, down toward the grass and then the sands and rocks, and then the waters of their river. Their socks soaked in joy.

They were not the only ones down there at the shore, of course. I don’t know, perhaps one out of every seven people in the town was down there now with them, as the rest were getting drunk or screwing or shooting each other or looting or screaming, those ones out of sevens were waltzing together. Some of those dancers were lovers, some were family or friends, some were strangers, just reaching out for connection at their last minute, last second to not wink out alone, no, rather with style. And then, after a few minutes more, the televisions and loudspeakers awkwardly had to announce that their automated news services had been hacked, they were much easier to hack since they laid off everyone for AI, no bombs were falling, it was all just a big hoax. Apologies!

After they heard the news, however, while so many other were apologizing or hastily putting out fires, those two women simply returned to their dancing.