“I fell into the lava, Sid. Head first. I don’t even know how it happened, you know? I was just trolling around on the Wario bike-kind of like a biker-chic Vespa-when I careened over the edge into that boiling, viscous, red-hot lava. All I could hear was Bowser’s tyrannical guffaw of triumph as I sunk deeper.”

Sidney took a long, exaggerated pull from her dwindling cigarette. She’d watched one too many mobster films in her youth, a result of careless parenting, and found strength in petty crime, pregnant pauses and hand-rolled cigarillos.

She was slow to reply, clearing her throat first with a low guttural sound. When she finally opened her mouth, she emitted a low frequency growl. A smoker’s voice.

“Lensay,” she purred, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure I’ve got something to take care of it.” She rattled her patchwork tote for emphasis.

I was in the driver’s seat as she rested languidly in the passenger side. I was vaguely nauseous from all the weaving through skyscrapers and townhouses. The smoke from the tip of her cigarette was irritating my nostrils, but I didn’t ask her to put it out. I liked the way she looked holding it, her reed fingers clutching the burning tip as it edged closer to smoldering off.

I’d never get used to the fast paced blur of the city, or to Sid, really, tattooed fingers snaking over the curve of the window, a Cheshire grin curling her pierced lips into a self-satisfied smirk. She’d never played Nintendo, never experienced the recurring nightmares of fatal rodeos in Bowser’s Castle.

I glanced sideways but found her eyes closed tight. She’d drifted off, the stub hanging loosely from her hand. “Ashes to ashes,” I muttered, watching a few fall and dot her peasant skirt. “Or me as ashes, I guess.”

It was my last thought, the fiery phoenix alight on her lap ebbing into the ghoulish vision of my flailing arms into that submerging pool. I felt the collision first, I guess. Sid jolted slightly but didn’t wake from her ever-deepening slumber. I didn’t try to stop it. It was easier to just let it go, to ease my feet off the gas and reach over to intertwine my stubby fingers into Sid’s slender ones. I stroked the imperial ink between my fingers and squeezed hard upon impact.

I’d never get used to this.