A Rainy Day, And What Happened That Night

It has been raining all day in Norman.

Night comes,

And though the drops have stopped,

Everything is damp and smooth

Like fingers through shampoo.



Chloe is outside on the sidewalk in front of Danny's Coffee Shop.

She is thinking of absolutely nothing,

Just watching the cars go by,

When something lands on her head like a sudden mandatory hat from hell.

"What the...!?!"

She shakes her head as if her raised hands held tiny hurricanes.



A little tabby cat jumps to the pavement.

She looks up.

Chloe looks back,

And they are both as cool as a couple of card players.

Chloe says at last,

"You little sneak."

The Queen Of The Vampires (for that is, of course, who the cat really is) replies with unblinking green eyes that say,

My client is innocent.



It has been raining all day in Norman.

The Queen Of The Vampires felt small and so became an eeny cat

And hid on the supports underneath the awning where it was dry.

Chloe came out,

And her blonde head looked inviting, like a manger.

The Vampire Queen dropped,

Like a shrimpy space capsule from the sixties, coming home.



When she grabbed onto Chloe's dome,

She meant,

"I am lonely today.

Love me

Love me

Love me."

But it came out more like Kamikaze Cat From Outer Space.



Still, Chloe says,

"You rotten little sneak,"

And picks her up off the sidewalk, scratching behind her ears and under her chin.

"It'll be all right," says Danny's resident serial killer and multiple felon.

Then she carries her inside,

Where it is bright,

And familiar,

And filled with the mixed aromas of good coffee

And October on the drying jackets

In booths and hung on the backs of chairs.

___________

scribbled for One Shot Wednesday