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[Thursday, October 29, 2015]
The kittens were soggy, and clingy,
and every color of candy in the bag.
Calliope had a pink one on her head,
two blue ones cradled to her chest, and
a purple tabby riding on her shoulder.
"Remind me how I got into this again?"
she said, picking up a jade-green one.
"Well, we needed someone else who
could phase through sewer tunnels,
and you don't hate us anymore,"
Vagary said. "No way could I
have rescued two dozen kittens
before my superpower gave out."
The problem, of course, was that
flooding in the cat room had --
somehow -- allowed the kittens
to float high enough to reach
vents that accessed parts of
the older infrastructure though
some circuitous route that
nobody had managed to trace.
So Calliope and Vagary had
to search for them by wafting
through layers of dirt and brick.
At the thickest places, they
held hands and swam through
solid stone as if it was water,
their energy trying to melt into
each other as they worked.
Finally they made it back to the lab.
"... twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four,
and that's the last of them," Calliope said
as she offloaded her final catch.
"Thank you," said Vidal Darden.
It was his lab, what was left of it
under the knee-deep water.
His assistant Aquiles Casales
slogged around, placing each
of the mewing kittens into
carriers and stacking them.
"I thought your unit had
better sense than this,"
Calliope said, watching.
"They're not members,
just occasional allies,"
Vagary said. "This isn't
one of our labs, but we'd
rather not see anyone drown."
"Are you going to turn us in
to the cops?" Vidal asked. "This
is Louisiana, they'll eat us alive."
"No, I'm going to report you
to Animal Welfare," said Calliope.
"What possessed you to put
a lab in a flood zone?"
"She's got us there,"
Aquiles muttered.
"It was all that I could
afford," Vidal confessed.
"God save us all from
broke supervillains,"
Calliope said, rolling
her eyes. "Time to go."
Then of course, the door
didn't want to open
because of the water.
"Fuck it," Calliope said.
She grabbed Vagary
and phased through.
She was tired, cranky,
and smelled like wet fur.
Walking back to the car,
she tried to forget the feel
of damp kitten paws against
her skin and Vagary's molecules
sliding through her unformed self.
[Monday, November 2, 2015]
It was Calvin who opened the door
for Vagary this time, not Calliope.
Vagary was a little startled.
He knew that Cal worked at
the craft store en homme, but
usually switched as soon as
possible on the way home.
"Feeling butchy today?"
Vagary wondered.
Calvin laughed. "No,
but I need the muscles,"
he said. "Something pried up
the wire mesh in my flowerbeds,
and squirrels got into my tulip bulbs.
So I need to replace a lot of them."
He pointed out the back door
to a pile of bags. Some held
compost and wood mulch.
"The Van Den Broeck tulips are
early bloomers in pastels and have
all different shapes. The Rembrandts
bloom mid-season in pastel stripes.
The Monets are late bloomers in
orange, yellow, and white," he said.
"Want some help?" Vagary offered.
"It looks like a pretty big job."
"Three beds, so yeah,"
Calvin said. "Thanks."
They went to the back yard,
where Calvin showed Vagary
which flowerbeds needed work.
The carnage was pretty clear,
though -- the squirrels had left
tulip fragments in their wake.
The new flowers were all
in Calliope's pale colors rather
than Calvin's deeper ones,
to go with the pigeon color
of the house and its decor.
Calvin didn't seem to mind.
Vagary enjoyed spending
time with him, which they
didn't get to do very often.
There was an ease to Calvin
and Vagary that wasn't there
with Calliope, at least not yet.
After all, it had been Calliope
and not Calvin that Vagary
had originally tangled with
and kidnapped and pissed off.
Vagary wouldn't look a gift horse
in the mouth. He was just glad
to be here, working with Calvin
in the autumn afternoon,
planting a bunch of flowers
that Calliope would see in spring.
[To be continued ...]