Morrigan Visits Target

Morrigan goes to Target, the day after Halloween.
On the way,
she hits Kelly Clarkson with her Subaru.
Morrigan appears in the form of a crow on the singer's shoulder.
"Aw, sugar pea," she sighs,
"no more dance shit out of you."

Modern life does not agree with Morrigan.
At Target,
she stands with her head tilted,
looking at an inflatable creche peopled with Peanuts characters;
a dog wearing a scarf represents the Christ.

Later, in her cave,
Morrigan contemplates all that she has seen.
In the old days,
There were oracles, vengeful goddesses,
and weird animal/human hybrids
filled with fury and purpose.

Now, there are singing snowmen wearing top hats,
sounding like Burl Ives.

Morrigan declares war on Target.
She animates the shopping carts and they advance in a phalanx,
demolishing displays,
sending snow globes to explode on the floor like bombs.
Briefly, she considers building a sacrificial pyre,
and causing all of the low rise jeans to take wing in a frenzy of self-immolation.

But, no.

Instead, she turns the assistant manager's vest into a block of ice
and sends him skidding out of the freight doors in the back.

Morrigan fills the changing room mirrors with terrifying visions
of writhing snakes and centipedes,
then turns the tongues of those shoppers who send out Christmas brag sheets into scorpions.
The tension lines on Morrigan's face begin to ease.

Her mood improved,
she enables zombie Kelly Clarkson to become a checker
in the only open lane.
A disturbing chanting issues from her mouth as she rings up and then attacks unwary shoppers
as they yammer on cell phones
or dig for their debit cards.
Her victims litter the check-out,
and spill, horrifyingly, into the greeting card aisle.

The store in shambles,
the hourly-wage Santa wandering blank-eyed and gibbering,
Morrigan turns her attention to the jewelry case.

There, she sees her girlfriend,
dangling a Celtic cross on a delicate gold chain from her equally delicate and beautiful fingers.
"Honey!" sighs Morrigan.
"Baby!" replies the girlfriend. "Look what I bought ya."

And so,
as the late Kelly Clarkson screeches out something that might be singing, but might not,
the two lovebirds stand amid the murdered plastic reindeer and the smoking, ruined, kitschy racks of holiday sweaters,
and a very smitten Morrigan says to the Dark-Haired Chick,
"How did you know it was me?"
She smirks and answers, "You did this last year, remember? I mean, duh."

Then the Dark-Haired Chick says, "Watch your hair, baby," and puts the Celtic cross and chain around Morrigan's--the QOTV's--neck.
"I love Christmas," says the Queen of the Vampires, happy as a crow in corn country.
"I know, baby," says her girl, rolling her eyes, but smiling. "I know."
_____

Compiled, in part, from a word list handed down to me from the hand of Flipside.