Scarecrow

An old scarecrow shuffles into Danny's Coffee Shop.
He stinks of moldy rain-funk. 

Chloe and the Succubus exchange a look.
"Muffin, please," says Scarecrow.

God the Waitress picks a jukebox tune.
"Not that cows and corn cob shit!" wails the Succubus.

Step back.
Step over.
Spin.

Chloe reaches out a hand. "C'mon, sailor."
Scarecrow dancing.
______

A Flash 55 for my BFF Hedgewitch.

Image at top: scenes from "Dark Night of The Scarecrow", my favorite Halloween movie, in which Bubba the scarecrow comes back to get revenge on demented mailman Mr. Hazelrigg.

 

Succubus

Here is the thing about a Succubus--
she won't schedule a date at a mutually convenient time.
She'll just appear--always at an unsuitable hour.
Don't expect her to ask if you were sleeping. She knows you were.
Don't wait for her to say "sorry." She's not.

Here is the thing about your body--
with the Succubus so close that her breath is as near as your own, 
it won't be answering your calls anymore. 
Your old familiar will be off the leash, off the rails,
off to hell and gone--pardon the figure of speech--
and you may as well put a band-aid on the fault line of an earthquake
as to try and master your flesh, with Her there.

Here is the thing about her purpose--
it has nothing to do with your body. It's become a door, that's all.
Lemme in, lemme in, lemme in, that's why she's rattling your ribs.
She'll fog your brain with her honeyfire ways.
She'll draw every tremble from every lit-up synapse,
and perfect a reflex from all your sweetspots. Then again. Then again.
All just to distract you and make you deliciously stupid.

Here is the thing about your heart--
it's next-of-kin to the thing she really wants.
Try to catch the words she whispers to her Master,
The One you're not supposed to realize is there, but she's lazy about it,
and you know, in a feverish, unreal way, that He's in on this with Her.
It's a metric that measures how fierce her appeal is,
that you know but don't care that she's sharing you all the while.

Here is the thing about it all--
She is after your Soul, and even a sparrow has the instinct to be wary.
Her lips, so soft they could make a god give up,
are the vehicle for every lie under the sun. 
Resist Her--yes, you, barely hanging on in the gale of her attentions.
Resist Her, even as She takes you over the edge.
Hold back just that one particle, that mote She's come for,
and know you're winning when she curls her lip and bites you awake,
shaking, in tears, but still a lit vessel intact despite the storm.
_______

From a dream I had recently.

Three

Chloe the serial killer is having the devil's own time dragging the tv pitchman's body into the weeds.

How's that for an opening sentence? Eat my dust, rubes.

She had had her thumb out--
cute as a box cutter in an angel's hand,
chin up
hip cocked
standing in the harsh shine of the rising sun.

She hadn't given a damn about limescale.
She hadn't cared how many ShamWows he had in his trunk.
Now his shitheap Hyundai is parked crookedly on the shoulder,
and one lonesome long-legged caffeine junkie is trying to stash him behind the hollyhocks.

It must be the Bohemian in her.

She has almost got him to the center of the cloverleaf when she hears something.
Shit. She's not alone.
Chloe turns in a slow circle. 
Then she sees a dark form nearly obscured in the shade of a trash tree--
it is the Queen of the Vampires in black panther form,
and she is crying.
Have you ever seen a cat cry?
They do it silently, but with their whole soul.

"Here is the place," she says to Chloe,
"where Athena, Artemis, Hestia and I used to hang out.
In those days, we killed all the developers before they could draw their first breath.
Artemis used to turn guys into jackalopes; no construction crews.
Hestia would build a fire,
and the four of us would pass the Mad Dog around.
I liked us better then."

The tv pitchman forgotten, Chloe sits down in the tall grass,
as the Queen of the Vampires resumes human form.
She continues:
"Now Athena is some muckety muck with the power company.
She lives in a condo,
and her owl is just some detailing on the door of her fucking Audi.

"He used to hunt here, swooping down from the trees,
and Artemis loved him so much, just as if he were her own.
She would coo to him like he was Head Baby at the Adorable Factory.
With a mouse in his talons.
And those big eyes.

"Arty lives with some woman who wears an ankh and runs bullshit workshops.
She's gone vegan, and doesn't even remember Orion at all.
Chloe....?" She falters.

"Yeah, hun? Tell me." 

The Vampire Queen lets out a shaky sigh.
"She...she spells woman with a Y."

"Oh, hun." 

"I know, right?"

They are silent for a long time, the tv pitchman stiffening up beside them.
"What about Hestia?" Chloe asks, putting her arm around her friend.

"She runs a B&B,
making English muffins for couples from East Candyland,
chatting them up, then washing another god damn load of sheets in the afternoon.
What happened to us, Chloe?
We were cool. Why do we suck so hard now?"

Just then, there is a rustling in the grass.
Chloe looks up, the sun seeming to traverse the lenses of her shades.
"Look what the cat dragged in!"

It's the Succubus, fluttering her black wings lazily.
"What's this?" she asks. "GSA troop 17?"

Chloe explains, shrugging a shoulder at her friend sitting next to her.
"She's feeling old and uncool."

"Fuuuuuck," says the Succubus wisely,
as she and the charming serial killer lift the Vampire Queen to her feet.
"What you need is some coffee, lady.
And guess who's sitting in your favorite booth at Danny's as we speak?"

The QOTV sniffles and wipes her face with her sleeve.
"Uh...Emmylou Harris maybe?"

"Nah. Even better. The Dark-Haired Chick."

"She not in Toronto?"

"Nope."

"Not in Chicago?"

"Nuh uh."

Not in L.A.?"

"She's at Danny's, waiting for you, you silly shithead. C'mon. I saw a Hyundai we can steal. We can be there in fifteen minutes."

So the three of them step over the dead tv pitchman and in fourteen and a half minutes,
they are at Danny's Coffee Shop,
once again the cool queens of caffeine.
_____

black night hollyhocks

Although I only used one word ("queen") from the list, it was mood wings's word list that inspired me. This is also for the Real Toads mini-challenge. Kelly Letky's photograph "Dance With The Ghosts of Tomorrow" made me think of the spontaneous scrub that springs up in unused patches of land, like next to freeway interchanges. The top image is hers. 

Athena, Artemis and Hestia are the "maiden goddesses".

Diana the Huntress (Artemis)

Dedicated to cool girls everywhere.  

 

The Coffee Within The Cream. ( Or Something. )

The Succubus sits at her favorite booth in the corner,
smoking and reading her horoscope.

"Hey. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." It's Chloe, the serial killer and resident sweetheart of Danny's Coffee Shop. "What's it say? 'Do your fucking roots already'?"

Behind Chloe, there are tally marks on the wall. 15 cheerleaders, 27 golfers, 11 assorted shitheads. 1 pop star. 1 criminal court judge. 2 morning people.

The Succubus reads her horoscope aloud. "Follow your dreams." Chloe snorts. Everyone knows that the Succubus follows other people's dreams and enters them. That she has incredible sex with them. That she steals their souls. Yadda yadda.

"I was in HER dream last night."

"HER?"

"You know. HER."

"Well Jesus H. Christ in a strapless gown," says Chloe. "Did you steal her soul???"

The Succubus looks over her dark glasses at Chloe as if the girl were simple-minded. "Uh, noOOOooo. Think about it."

Chloe has white dust from a sugar donut on her lips. She stops chewing. "Oh. Right. So, what was she dreaming about?"

"She dreamed she was on a bus, but it was more like a train. She had on boots and an expensive coat and a big hat, but no top, and the coat was open."

Chloe laughs. "That chick is coo coo. What else?"

"Well, she wanted to get off the bus at the National Shrine of the Little Flower, but the driver said the bus was a Limited and she couldn't."

God the waitress looks over. She's been eavesdropping. It isn't easy, staying omniscient. "Good for her. I hope she kicked him in the shins."

Two heads swivel over to stare at God. "Or somewhere!" chirps Chloe.

Just then, the Queen of the Vampires comes strutting in, in black panther form, with the Speaker of the House dangling from her jaws. 

"Ohmugaw, " says the Succubus. She looks at Chloe and adds, "Do you remember when our little kitty started out with birds and mice? All grown up now. " The Succubus sighs. "What's a demoness from the underworld to do?"

The Queen of the Vampires leaps up into a booth, dropping John Boehner so that she can rip the bejabbers out of the seat with her fearsome claws, to make herself comfy. "What are you two simps discussing? Oh, wait a minute. WHO are you discussing?"

(*cricket cricket*)

The QOTV is just about to sink her fangs into the Representative from Ohio, when she looks up. "Spill!"

"Um, we were discussing you, darling, but...not."

"Huh?"

The Succubus goes back to her Life section. "One day all of these mysteries will make sense to you. For now, child, eat your snack." 

Chloe snorts again. "She's so cute when she's confused." 

"Girls." It is the warning voice of God. 

"We're just fucking with her," complains Chloe. Instantly, she is surrounded by a hundred perky cheerleaders, waving pom poms. "Okay! I'll stop!" The cheerleaders vanish as quickly as they came. God smirks and goes back to working on her chalk menu board.

"One day you'll know your destiny, padewan," says the Succubus. "Your true identity." Then, lowering her voice as deep as she can, she adds, "Kitty...I am your faaaatherrrr." When she laughs it is surprisingly light and girlish. For a demoness. 

Just then, the little bell above the door jingles, and someone walks in. She's wearing jeans and boots and is complaining under her breath about having to drive a clown car. She is met with a loud chorus of whoops and wolf whistles from the Danny's girls. She pretends not to notice. Walking up to the to-go counter, she asks, "Who does a girl have to fuck around here to get some coffee?"

 * * *

Her eyes open, and she groans. Morning. For some reason, she wants coffee even more than usual. She has a weird urge to go to the National Shrine of the Little Flower today. She wonders what the bus schedule is like. Then, for no reason she can name, she puts her hand to her chest and feels the usual tee shirt. "Weird," she mumbles, getting out of bed. Let's see...coffee, chocolate chip oatmeal.....let Bosco out...then write something for the blog. Maybe a Danny's Coffee Shop thing. Or maybe some soppy love poem. "O Dark-Haired Chick," she begins, in her head. Um...what rhymes? schtick, trick, dick...no, that's not working out. Go with Dannys. Okay, um....

The Succubus sits at her favorite booth in the corner,
smoking and reading her horoscope....

______

for Real Toads "Find Your Creative Space".

I really did have the dream described above, about the bus, and Shrine, and my distinctive and stylish mode of costume, last night. I'm ready for my close-up now, Mr. DeMille.

Learn about the fascinating history of the Shrine of the Little Flower, HERE.

“First sign of madness, talking to your own head.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 

   

Midnight Jane

Midnight Jane knows a thousand candles
won't carry her prayer any faster.
Beautiful and blessed Saint Creola,
paint me a center line--
press a macadam pavement from every heart I ever carried between breath and skin;
give me, I pray, strong coffee and a name I can keep.

Outside Danny's Coffee Shop,
cranes contracted by the city manager raise the sun.
He would like to zone Danny's out of existence,
but it is as if God Herself were against him;
seven plagues have sogged his cereal
and set his ties to clash.

Midnight Jane, stay as long as you like.
Danny's is always open, even on a Sunday.
Margie, the city manager's wife, didn't get The Light sprayed on her blonde
directly from the Hand of The Divine;
she just lets on as if she did.

Jane, try the arms of the Succubus.
There, in a quiet corner booth,
it can always be night as smooth as new blacktop
and the stars that flash by like lane markers
belong to anyone.
_______

This is my 1200th post at Word Garden!
 

Word Garden's 1,000th Post!

The woman with the camera was getting exactly nowhere. She was standing inside Danny's Coffee Shop, trying to get a good shot of the Queen Of The Vampires, but every picture just showed wall, tables, coffee cups. No QOTV. She gave her camera a little shake, then smacked her forehead.

"Vampire," said Daryl with an eye roll. "No mirrors. No pictures. What was I thinking?"

The QOTV smirked as only a Vampire Queen in black panther form can, and went on shredding another booth. 

"Chica, hold still, I want to draw you!" Scarlet's always drawing someone.

Over by the counter, the waitresses God and Denise were chattering with Chloe--the resident serial killer and multiple felon--and The Succubus.

"I've got Mama Zen's," said Denise.

"Chick's hot!" sighed Chloe. "Hey," she said, turning to the Succubus, "you ever get into her dreams?"

"Nope," replied the Succubus, her eyes hidden behind big dark glasses. "I can't get past the buffalo blanket and the dog."

Chloe put on a mock pout. "Poooor Suk-oo-buss!"

"Oh shut the fuck up," muttered the Succubus mildly. It was morning, and she was feeling mellow after a long night of stealing souls.

Meanwhile, the kitten Giuseppe Verdi was rolling around on a tabletop with Stripey, a customer's cat, much to the amusement of Savanna, the teenage runaway.

The Succubus moved smoothly across the room, after perfunctorily flipping off Chloe, and sat down dramatically at a table next to a woman wearing nearly identical sunglasses. "Sara...you're so diviiiiiiiiiiiiine!" They looked like twins.

Behind them, a woman was leaning out of the doorway, screeching at some kids. "Get off my sidewalk!" She turned around and sat back down. "I'm never going to finish this poem!"

"What is it about?" Chloe asked Hedgewitch, for it was none other. 

"Well...it's about an incubus who shows up on a brush hog and seduces a girl who has three heads and twelve arms. Here, read it..."

Chloe read it as the denizens of Danny's swirled around her.

"Do you think it's too sweetsy cutesy? I could put some bats in it..."

Chloe shook her head. "It's perfect."

"Are you sure my mother in law will be turned into a toad?" asked Lolamouse anxiously, peering into the pouch she'd just been given by Denise. 

"She's as good as green."

Just then, a streaking black blur flew through the air and into a booth. It was the QOTV, who had just spotted the Dark Haired Chick. She landed with a happy thump and toppled them both over backwards where they disappeared into the seat. 

"Get offa me, you crazy spaz!" said the DHC, but she was laughing.

"Shhh! Everybody!" It was Chloe. She had moved over by the window, which had been designed by Ellen, and was intent upon something out in the street. "Silent treatment!"

The little bell over the door rang and the mail lady walked in. You could hear a pin drop. Nobody looked up.

"Wow, what's wrong with you guys?" she asked as she dumped a bunch of crap on the counter. "Here's your mail!"

The Succubus blew a smoke ring. Chloe examined a fingernail. God and Denise filled the napkin holders without looking up. 

"Okay then...er...bye!" But before she could get out the door, everybody yelled, 

"Happy one thousandth post, Shay!!!!"

"Aw shucks, you guys!"

Then a single voice rose above the others. 

"My Redbook! It finally came!"

Who knows what wonders may occur at Danny's Coffee Shop in the next one thousand posts???

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.

_________

Tainted Love

From fucking to flower arrangement--
From butchery to brain surgery--
Anything can become just a job.

The Succubus is stealing some guy's soul--
She's slipped into his dreams
And it's nothing but the same old thing...
She's singing "Tainted Love" in her head as she takes him from sexual zero
To three hundred and fifty in five seconds.


It's rote, she's barely there.
He goes wtf-omg-OMG like they always do.
She's thinking,
Who sang "Tainted Love" anyway?
The Sellouts?
Cell Memory?
Was it...Soft Cell! It was Soft Cell!


The guy mistakes her dreamy smile for pleasure
Just before she says, "Oh please," and snaps his neck
Like a celery stick.


She sighs--
The night is only half done.
In the morning, she will go home alone.
No one will enter her dreams.
She doesn't have dreams.
Not anymore.


________


for Thursday Think Tank

Give

Too bright the light

While the succubus sleeps.

Too harsh, too hard

The concrete skin of sun-bitten streets.



Give her the moon.

Give her horned creatures standing silent in the silver light.

Give her owl's eye and raven's claw in velvet pouch of night.

Give her a home in a deep-scored bone.



No one dreams well while the world burns bright.

No whisper can survive the stabbing beak of noon.

Let the succubus wake when the river runs black,

Reflecting sinking stars that flow ever slowly down.



Give her the moon and your silver-lit dream.

Leave your hair spread easy, and a lantern on the boom.

Kiss her in the darkling depths,

Her sweet deep-blue renown.

_____

painting: The Lorelei, by J.W.Waterhouse

linked to One Shot Wednesday

Burn

Word starts getting around about Danny's Coffee Shop--

A girl wearing black fingerless lace gloves and her skinhead boyfriend walk in and he stands right in front of the Succubus,

Snapping pictures with his phone

As the girlfriend swipes her dyed black hair out of her face and giggles.



The Succubus once owned this place. She was the first.

Then she got stupid over Chloe, and though they still share the air,

They are like buses at a stop--

Never touching and bound in opposite directions.



"I've become a Point Of Local Interest," thinks the Succubus as her ashy heart turns over in her undeniably perfect chest...

"I've become a demon in a zoo."

In one motion, she stands up, all seven glorious feet of her, and spreads her black wings,

Knocking over everything within her wingspan;

Soon the skinhead's phone is dust and the silly girlfriend's skin has gone all to hell--

Well damn,

Sorry about that, kids.



The Succubus strides out, imperial and evil,

And everybody just steps back.

Nobody has seen her like this in months.



From rooftop to rooftop she moves in the frozen night,

Until she finds the place she was looking for...

In she glides, like a knife drawn from under a peasant girl's skirts, and slid into a wound,

Killing the priest who accused her.

She is here to enter the dreams of the woman who sleeps before her,

A genuine beauty,

Alone,

Hers for the plucking.



When the Succubus enters someone's dreams, their dreams turn sweet beyond imagining--

It's just that

They will never have another one.

Pity that.



Together they rise, they join in this wicked illusion,

But then,

The Succubus smells smoke.

No, it's not the Boss.

The space heater has set the blankets on fire and the place is going up...

The Succubus looks at her prey, whose name is Angeline, and she can't help herself,

Can't stop herself...

She alters their dream to one of cool water, pitchers of cream poured over soft skin, all things soothing and sweet-scented.

She wraps her body around Angeline, but not as she had planned to do--

She carries her out onto the balcony near the fire escape. All she needs is a goddam day-glo yellow helmet and an ax.

The freezing air wakes Angeline and she makes her way down, down,

To the street and to life.



Around dawn, the Succubus walks back into Danny's Coffee Shop.

The Queen of the Vampires starts to crack wise, but is stopped by one lifted finger with its razor sharp red nail.

"Don't," says the Succubus,

And sits down where she was when the camera kids came in.

She is not the same.

Time will reveal whether this is a good thing or not, and time is one thing,

Along with a deep, black melancholy,

That she has plenty of.

She curls one foot underneath herself

And folds her wings back in

As if they were her dark intentions

Brought back to the roost like bats.

___________

Ah! Bright Wings.

It is morning at Danny's Coffee Shop.

God is walking by with somebody's espresso, when she kicks something and nearly takes a header. It is (another) dead salesman on the floor.

"Gosh darn it!" says God. "Who got this one?"

"I think it was Chloe," says the Succubus absently, wrapped up in her book. It is Billy Collins's "The Apple That Astonished Paris." This is a step up from last week's trash novel.

"How's the book?" God asks this while stepping gracefully over the dead salesman.

"Oh, bitter...bitter..." says the Succubus. "But I like it. Because it is bitter. And because it is my book."

"Pffffft!" says God. "Hey what's that weird noise? It's coming from outside!"

"Sounds like a creature in abject terror!" observes the Succubus brightly. They both go out to investigate.

They look up.

There at the edge of the roof, is the Queen Of The Vampires, in black cat form, peering down and yowling, her eyes big and offended, in classic get-me-down-from-here mode.

"What's she doing up there?" says the Succubus.

"No clue," says God slowly. It is an error to believe that She knows everything. She could if she wanted, but she prioritizes. Hair product knowledge, then coffee beans, then famine and junk like that, and finally cats on rooves, which she doesn't get around to all that often.

"Ohhhhh," says the Succubus, the light going on. "She's up there with the Dark Haired Chick. Shoulda known. It's like those two are joined at the fucking hip."

"Please don't curse," says God automatically. 

It's true though. They are both up there.

"What the fuck?" says the Succubus. It's a reasonable question.

God climbs up the ladder. There, on the roof of Danny's Coffee Shop, she finds the Dark Haired Chick painting pentagrams. 

"What the fuck?" says God. 

She gets the Dark Haired Chick by the ear and drags her down off the roof, with the cat in her arms, protesting loudly. 

Later, while God waitresses through morning rush, the other three sit together at a table. "You know she's gonna make you go back up there and remove them, right?"

"Fuck you," says the Dark Haired Chick. 

"Row. Rowwwwoww," say the QOTV.

"Don't curse," says the Succubus, smirking. "All that work. Poor things. Oh well. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."

"Who gave you a library card?" It is the QOTV, who has shape shifted back to her natural form. She pronounces it "libary." 

The Succubus raises one perfectly arched eyebrow. "God works in mysterious ways, Her wonders to perform." 

God, rushing past with an order, laughs. Her laugh is like cherry Coke. 

It is morning at Danny's Coffee Shop. 

There was a dead salesman on the floor. There are pentagrams on the roof. (For now.) There is God, looking good in a white shirt and jeans. 

Welcome to Danny's.

What can I get you?
________

Blackberry Way

"YEAH JAKE? LISTEN, MAN, I'M AT SOME COFFEE PLACE...YEAH..." he shouts into his little plastic phone.

"I'LL BE THERE BY SEVEN. YEAH," he screams. He is planted just inside the doorway at Danny's Coffee Shop, so that people have to go around him.

"IT'S ON A DISC. IT'S ON A DISC IN MY OFFICE," he booms. He has a briefcase in his hand. "I'LL GO OVER THAT, AND--"

A black panther streaks through the air and hits Jabberjaws like a furry, fanged wrecking ball;

For the first time in weeks, man, phone, and briefcase are separated, with all of the violence that major life changes are known to bring.

She sinks her teeth into his throat, and as his fingers twitch and the white collar of his hokey, otherwise blue, businessman's shirt is stained red,

The Queen of the Vampires returns to her charming natural form as she subtracts Mini-Trump from the world of the living.

Denise, the waitress, looks up from filling the napkin holders and warns, "Don't leave a mess on my floor, or you're cleaning it up, Toots."

Only at Danny's does anyone call the Queen of the Vampires "Toots."

The QOTV looks up.

"Go like this," says Denise, and the QOTV realizes she has breakfast on her cheek.

"I was saving some for later."

"You're such a spaz."

The QOTV ducks into the ladies' room to fix her face.

After a splash, and a pat-down with a paper towel, she re-does her lipstick and looks up to check it.

There is, of course, nothing in the mirror but the reflection of the stalls behind her.

"Goddammit," mutters the QOTV.

There is giggling from Chloe at the next sink, where she has been messing with her hair.

"Maybe you need glasses," she suggests, not even bothering to hide her smirk.

"Fuck you!" says the QOTV, laughing.

Lack of reflection is why you rarely meet vampires who are runway models,

Or news anchors,

Or actresses in community theatre.

All those perfectly-coiffed movie vampires? Pure fiction. How would it be done? Staff?

The QOTV comes out and noisily drops into a booth across from her friend, the Dark Haired Chick. (The QOTV becomes fiercely jealous if anyone else sits there.)

"Everyone here are such bitches!" the QOTV complains.

"I heard that," says Denise, without looking up.

"And proud of it, too," chimes in the Succubus, lighting a cigarette with her fingertip.

It is morning at Danny's.

There is a dead guy on the floor.

Don't worry, though.

God will get to him after her break.

_________

Click on the title "Blackberry Way", at the top, to see where I shamelessly stole the title from.

Succubus Resurgent

The Succubus starts to get her strut back.

First,

She does something about her hair.

The stylist is stoked;

It's not every day she gets a genuine bona fide soul-stealing demon in her chair for a color and cut.

As the split ends fall,

Little smoke wisps curl up from the floor of the salon,

So that the place starts to smell like an unlikely combination of hair spray, peroxide, shampoo, and brimstone.

Succubi sleep around;

It's what they do.

Next thing they know, they're on Oprah, cautionary tales with long red fingernails, dabbing at their intense dark eyes with a hankie and blubbering out, "Mother was right. I'm miserable!"

Well, shit.

The Succubus is not about to let this happen to her.

She reminds herself that she is the kind of girl who hands out the ace of spades as a valentine,

Runs with the wolves,

And goes where she damn well pleases, doing what she will when she gets there.

She has stopped spelling out Chloe's name with the bones of her victims, though she knows she will never really forget her.

These days, she enters the dreams of Denise the waitress, but instead of stealing, she finds herself leaving shavings from her black and eternal heart behind,

Strewn across Denise's dreams like rose petals on white bed sheets.

Her love is such, that mornings find her woozy and talking gibberish, making up nicknames for her new baby,

Like "Pooky"

And "Love Muffin."

She would die if anybody besides Denise heard her,

But, the woman is impossible to resist...

Sitting in her shrimpy kitchen, smoking, wearing Van Gogh "Starry Night" jam bottoms and an old top, that though it is loose--or because it is--makes her breasts look so appealing that,

If there were a road where her stove and refrigerator are,

She would cause pile-ups all over the place--

Broken fenders and hearts.

When they kiss,

Denise's cigarette flares up in the ash tray like a sunspot,

The tv on the counter goes all weird,

And the copper-bottomed pots all fall off the wall.

"Be careful with my soul," whispers the Succubus, who knows better than most how to spot one that's been stolen.

_________

Danny's

A large, older man walks in the employee entrance at the back of Danny's Coffee Shop,

And in a voice like an old tractor starting up, says,

"Good morning, ladies."

"Good morning, Dannyyyyy!" they sing back.

God, hurrying past with an order, stops to plant one on his cheek.

She lifts her heel as she does this.

Being kissed by God is a fine way to start the day.

Another waitress, Denise, chirps, "Hi Hot Stuff!" as she whizzes by.

So much caffeine!

The man's name is really Dmitri Danzipopoulos, but everyone just calls him Danny.

He is 72 years old.

Although he is Greek, his place does not serve gyros.

But the coffee,

Oh the coffee,

Is like lightning light on satin sheets;

It makes your eyes go wide like a cat's, when the nip mouse comes out.

He makes his way into the shop and sees the Succubus.

"You were in my dreams last night," he tells her.

"Is that so?" says the Succubus, the corner of her mouth turning up ever so slightly.

"That's right." His voice is like that of a chain-smoking rhinoceros.

He adds,

"You were a nun."

The Succubus snorts.

"You wanted me to go with you to the horse track, but I wouldn't. I was too pious." He drawls out the last word.

The Succubus laughs.

Have you ever seen a laughing succubus? They're rare.

"Fuck you," she says, sipping her latte, but she's smiling.

"Some talk for a nun."

Then he spots the Queen Of The Vampires curled up on the end of the counter.

"Get off there, you mangy cat!" he growls.

She wakes up and snarls, swiping at him with her fearsome claws, missing his nose by only the width of a coffee stirrer.

He doesn't flinch. "And you owe me for two new booths."

"Rowww," she says, which means, "I lub you, you old coot."

Vampire Queens rarely speak this way to anyone.

Once, a Starbuck's opened up across the street.

There were problems from the start, as if supernatural forces were arrayed against it.

The night of the big fire, Chloe was seen walking across the road, or really, sort of half dancing.

Anyone close enough would have heard her singing, in her cool clear voice,

"Start me up..."

Chloe bears not the slightest resemblance to Mick Jagger,

But she likes his songs.

The little bell above the door rings, and here comes the mail.

As she sets Danny's letters next to the cash register,

God, Denise, the Succubus, the QOTV, and Chloe all go,

"Thanks, Shayyyyy!"

"wOOt!" thinks Shay.

Danny's Coffee Shop is her favorite delivery.

____