Monday, May 7, 2012

The Queen Has Fallen

The Queen is Tired. Long Sleep the Queen.
When you look at that title, I wonder what you see? Do you envision a rotund, orange-haired traitor stumbling on her heels, thanks to a .38 bullet that has pierced the understory of her bouffant? Do you imagine her girth collapsing against the louse of a man who has the audacity to walk two paces in front of her, his cheating form acting merely as a tool to break her fall?

Alas, my kittens. The queen, is moi.

I couldn't do it. Oh do not misinterpret. It was not a question of skill or canniness. I had them in my sights, both of them. They were nothing if not obvious. I've shot festival courtyard mimes that were better hidden then these two. Oh, I have. In the Marienplatz in Munich, just in the late afternoon shadow of the great glockenspiel. But that's another story, my dears. I know you want to hear it, but you will just have to wait!

No, the truth is, this grande old dame (and a reminder, I may refer to myself as "old", you oughtn't dare, as the late Mimieux would mime for you) discovered a softness in her heart that she'd longsince forgotten. Miles was the first to remind me of it, when I grew concerned about the ache that had begun to swell in my chest. I thought it might have been that the foi gras and toast had been spiked with arsenic, but since Miles had eaten far more than his fair share (and was happily enjoying the afterglow of a Latin-delivered rubdown) I knew it was something else.

"It's happening, my queen," he said.

"What is that?" I queried.

"You're rediscovering your heart. They have betrayed you, the both of them. But the love you once felt toward them is still hot to the touch. Like an earthenware caquelon at the end of a long, champagne-fueld soiree."  I shot him a horrified look and he shrugged nonchalantly, adding "I've never had fondue myself, but I've heard..."

And so I let them go, the two of them. On their merry ways. But not before firing off a single round and taking out the street light directly over them, sending a shower of glass onto them, like flakes of jagged snow.

I'm thinking that I am due for a trip to Morocco. Don't you?