Ohmuhgaw !

It is mid-afternoon on a Tuesday at Danny's Coffee Shop.
Denise the waitress is doing her nails.
Chloe the serial felon is meditating to "Relaxing Sounds Of Ocean & Surf".
The Succubus is crashed with her face on the table, drooling, but she still has on her cool shades. Savanna the teenage runaway puts a sticky that says "kick me" on the Succubus's huge black wings.
She thinks this is enormously hilarious.

The kitten Giuseppe Verdi wanders up to a table full of girls, wanting the standard fuss and adoration he is used to at Danny's,
but these are popular girls from the high school.
One of them screws up her face and says, "Ohmuhgaw. Why do these places always have cats??"
There is a book sticking out of her bag. Perhaps it is ornamental. She doesn't seem like a reader.

Denise looks up from her mani.
Chloe's chi goes off center and she ditches the Relaxing Surf.
The Succubus wakes up and flutters her wings,
which sends Savanna off the deep end, laughing.

One of the popular girls notices the charged silence and asks, challengingly,
"Wut???"

Just then, a blinding black blur comes hurtling at their table and lands on it, scattering all the bottled waters and ipads. 
"RAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!" says the blur, turning in circles on top of the table, like a maniac.
It is, of course, The Queen of the Vampires, in black panther form.

"OhmuhGAW!" screech the popular girls, as the QOTV demolishes their booth.
"Eww. Why do these places--"
but she is interrupted by the QOTV clawing out her nasty overdyed hair.
Luckily for her, the cat is distracted by the book that the kitten Giuseppe Verdi has pulled from the girl's bag.

Together, they go from one end of Danny's to the other, destroying the book with unrestrained glee.
"RAWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRR!!!"
"rawwwwwwwrrrrrrr!!!" 
they say.
It was probably not a history book, but now that book is history.

"Ohmuhgaw," squeaks one of the popular girls from underneath a table.
Chloe the serial killer sticks her head upside down beneath the table and inquires,
"Tell me, lame popular girl, what was that book?!?"
Popular Girl's glossed lip trembles as she says,

"The Oxford Book Of Haiku".
_______ 

Fangs

The Queen of the Vampires has her chin on the table and her hair up in a messy knot on top of her head.

Suddenly, she hisses bloodcurdlingly and shows her fangs.
Her eyes get big.
She turns her head from side to side.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Her razor-sharp canines glint in the light of Danny's Coffee Shop.

Her opponent takes all of this in without so much as a blink, although he does flatten his ears.

Then he opens his mouth, and shows his own fangs,
looking about as threatening as a throw pillow.
It is the kitten Giuseppe Verdi.

"Oh please," says Denise the waitress, passing by.

Giuseppe Verdi launches himself at the Vampire Queen,
knocking her backwards in her chair
(or so she lets him think)
until she lands unceremoniously on the checkered floor of Danny's,
with the kitten on her chest, gloating.

"What are you two morons doing?" It is Chloe, all blonde hair and parole violations.
Gathering all of her dignity,
or as much as she can while lying on the floor with a kitten on her chest,
The Queen of the Vampires says,
"We are playing Leopard and Villager. I'm the villager."

Chloe smirks. "How come I've never seen you balance a basket on your head?"

"I could if I wanted. I just don't feel like it," sniffs the Vampire, snatching up Giuseppe Verdi and kiss-mugging him.
He allows this for a minute, then runs off.

"Borrrrrrrrrrrn freeeeeeeeee," screeches Chloe.
"Nice," says the QOTV. "You could kill a cheerleader at twenty paces with that voice."
"Do you really think so?" asks Chloe, pleased.

Just then, the little bell above the door rings,
and the Dark-Haired Chick walks in.
She is immediately pounced upon by a large black blur,
which turns out to be the QOTV in black panther form.
Taking the Chick in her jaws, the QOTV drags her into a booth.

"Wtf?" says the Dark-Haired Chick.
"You're the Villager," explains the Succubus,
sitting at her favorite spot in the corner.
"Just go with it."

It's a typical Monday night at Danny's Coffee Shop.
Try the mocha cappuccino.
When God makes one,
She always sneaks Giuseppe Verdi a little bit of whipped cream.
________ 

Giuseppe Verdi At Large

Some dweeb holds open the door to Danny's Coffee Shop too long,
And the kitten Giuseppe Verdi is loosed upon the world.
Bounce
Bounce
Pounce
Pounce
Bounce
Pounce
Pounce.
"Come back here, you little shit!" shouts Chloe the cute blonde serial murderer,
And takes off after him as fast as her cross-trainers can carry her.

Meanwhile,
The Queen Of The Vampires, in panther form,
Has her great fearsome paws stuck up in the air
As if she were a Saturday morning cartoon character.
Her head is up against the Dark-Haired Chick
And they are both in a booth,
Joined at the hip as usual.

The Dark-Haired Chick says to the Succubus,
"Tell me what she's dreaming."
The Succubus squints,
Then tells her,
"She is dreaming that she is with you, in your kitchen.
She is dreaming that she is right side up, wearing red socks,
And that whenever she looks at you,
She feels as if she were riding in a gypsy wagon
Swaying in the wind."
Anything else?
"Yes. She wonders why the floor feels so light, like skating on chocolate."
With that, the QOTV's toes twitch;
The Dark-Haired Chick gives her dark-haired head a little shake
And her lips turn up at the corners.

Chloe comes breezing back in with the kitten Giuseppe Verdi in her arms.
"Bad boy. Baaaad boy!" she croons.
Danny's is just full of remarkable creatures
And the killer chicks who love them.

_________

Vee Haff Informayshun!

As some of you have astutely discerned, I think Emmylou Harris is the second most fabulous human being on the planet after STWIASD (She To Whom I Am Slavishly Devoted). Only the most churlish of you would point out that Emmylou has no opinion about me, cos she, um, well, doesn't know I exist. 

But the wonderful blogger Sioux has alerted me to a really excellent article in the current issue of Garden & Gun magazine!  Garden & Gun??? Southerners...y'all are nucking futs! But the article is a fine one. Find it HERE.

Garden & Gun. What's next, Okra & Ought Sixes? 

This post approved by Giuseppe Verdi, kitten.

______

Inconstancy

The kitten Giuseppe Verdi is smaller than nearly everything

Except mice.

Woe betide the cheeser who does not understand this.



Dreams are smaller than the night they are born to,

And yet,

As the Succubus can tell you, they contain the soul.

Doom awaits the sleeper who denies this.



It is not the light which makes the morning,

But the presence or absence of this or that face,

Felt the more keenly

The fresher the change.



The kitten Giuseppe Verdi worries about none of this.

He has no mother,

But he has a waitress

And a panther to play with.



Mrs. Langtry's talent was smaller than Bernhardt's or Terry's,

But her loveliness brought roses and proposals from the fine gentlemen in the front row.

Theater is illusion,

And the Jersey Lily knew how to work it.



The play ran for one hundred and eleven weeks--

No one now living was there to see it.

The theater has disappeared, replaced by a coffee shop.

The kitten pounces.

The Succubus waits.

A waitress laughs.

The Dark-Haired Chick sits in one of the booths, dressed entirely in black,

With a panther stretched out at her boots

Like a thrown rose.

_______

for One Shoot Sunday

photograph: Lily Langtry

________

Giuseppe Verdi, Victorious

Tanya quits the chain coffee shop;

Just gives 'em the yo heave ho, collects Giuseppe Verdi the kitten, and walks out,

Strutting like Catherine the Great, or Lady Gaga or somebody.



She finds God.

God is head waitress at Danny's Coffee Shop.

She makes killer menu boards,

And does all the hiring.

In no time, Tanya fits in like Portia de Rossi does on Ellen's arm,

And Giuseppe Verdi is merrily attacking the resident black panther,

Who outweighs him by about umpty-zillion to one.



Giuseppe Verdi bats at the panther,

Who is,

Of course,

The shape-shifted Queen of the Vampires,

And down she goes like a ton of bricks.

She lays on the floor with her paws in the air and her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth;

If she could make her eyes into X's, she would.

Chloe scoops up the victorious kitten, kisses him and sets him inside an empty sugar bowl,

Which promptly falls over.



Some chick catches it before it falls off the table.

She is here for open mic night.

Her name is Coal Black, and her big hit is called "Sugar Shock Of Love."

She doesn't do drugs anymore.

Her hair is all weird.

She wears so much mascara that she looks like an electrocuted raccoon.



The Queen of the Vampires, still in panther form, is sitting with her favorite, the Dark-Haired Chick.

When Coal Black straps on her guitar, checks the amps, and starts in with the first notes of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll",

The QOTV drags the reluctant Dark-Haired Chick up to the stage by her jacket sleeve,

Pulling her backwards with her teeth.

Being dragged anyplace by a black panther is very persuasive stuff.



Coal Black and the Dark-Haired Chick share a mic and scream Coal Black's newest song, "Buzz Saw My Heart" together.

Sing.

I meant sing.



Giuseppe Verdi sits on the QOTV's head, watching with his big amazed eyes.

Tanya rakes in the tips.

Savanna still has a knife in her boot.

It's another spifftastic night at Danny's Coffee Shop.

__________

picture: Crystal Renn

Deus Ex Machina

The Halloween suicide walks out along the flag pole

In resale shop black shoes.

There is a kitten named Giuseppe Verdi riding in the pocket of her smock,

And his big yellow eyes say,

"Please reconsider.

Think of all the tuna fish I would miss.

Think of Tanya,

Across town, serving lattes to strangers,

With your heart folded carefully and kept with her car keys and her fabulous accent."



But the Halloween suicide falls like the notes of an adagio,

Giving first one graceful foot to the empty air,

And then the other.

Her smock spreads out

Like bat wings

And she and Giuseppe Verdi float through the nippy October sky like two leaves connected at the stem.

"Tra-la," she sings,

As they arc this way, then that.

Clearly, they ride in the palm of a Divine Hand.



They come down softly on the patio of a chain coffee bar.

Inside, Tanya looks up from counting her tips and smiles.

No opera heroine ever looked more beautiful.

Later, petting both aviatrix and kitten, she says,

"Don't you know you can never leave as long as I own your heart?

I am your deus ex machina;

I will always cushion your fall and welcome you back to my arms."

The Halloween suicide begins to cry, big fat tears melting into Giuseppe Verdi's black fur.

"Why are you so good to me? I'm a mess," the flyer says, looking up. "What's in it for you, Magoo?"

Tanya laughs and kisses her.

"I love you for your magic,

For your ever-broken heart,

And because you need me, like Giuseppe Verdi needs you."

The kitten rumbles under her hand,

And she knows that it must be true.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday Week 17

Deus ex machina (god from the machine) is a term describing the sudden appearance of an unexpected way out of a difficult situation