For one Monday Poetry Bus, a few years ago, TFE had requested that we board the streetcar named desire and finish a poem that he had begun a while ago, which happens to mention the name Stella (the beer and Paul McCartney's daughter's clothing line.)
Well, I had an incident with a precocious bug in the Tutoring Resource Center which I coordinated at the local university. After learning that there was an infestation of these 'squash bugs' (or 'stink bugs') in another building where I had just visited, it dawned on me that perhaps, this critter had hitched a ride in my hair because it wanted to hang out in the TRC. Eeeeewww! All this inspired a little flash fiction tale with the main character, unbelievably....Stella! So here 'tis:
Stella, the Ceili-Dancing Squash (Stink) Bug
by Jeanne Iris Lakatos
A March sun warmed the oak tree, standing at the entrance of the Old Main Building. Melting snow formed puddles in which blue birds and sparrows graciously bathed.
"Oh my," yawned Stella the squash bug. "It's already March! St. Padhraig's Day will soon be here, and I must stretch me dancing legs. What's that I hear? A lovely professor humming a ceili dance?! Why, I'll just leap into those long brunette locks and see where she takes me."
Stella waited until Jeanne passed right under her branch, took a deep breath and JUMPED!
"Ah! There we go!" she smiled.
Jeanne never saw the squash bug, clinging to the top of her head. She moved quickly across the campus, still humming the merry tune while Stella bounced to the rhythm of Jeanne’s Stella McCartney heels clicking along the brick sidewalk.
The professor opened the entrance door to Berkshire Hall and stepped down the hall to the Tutoring Resource Center where she headed straight to her CD player to raise the volume of her Celtic music album. Ah, Stella loved that melody and decided to move a bit closer, so she leaped off Jeanne’s hair, and oh no! She fell right into the blinds against the window...flat on her back!
"Please, PLEASE help me, Professor!" she cried, flailing her dancing legs. "See? I'm doing a ceili dance! The Connemara!"
Jeanne heard the THUNK of Stella’s fall, and peeked behind the blinds to see the squash bug’s wiggling legs.
"Ahhhh!" screamed Jeanne, "A huge bug just fell from somewhere into the window!" Eeeeewwwww! Someone, please…. Help me get rid of this thing!"
“Thing?!” I’m of a proud line of perfectly fine squash bugs, I’ll have you know,” retorted the indignant Stella.
A brave Biology student calmly held out her hand to the bug. Stella elegantly crawled into her fingers.
"Go raibh maith agat!" she smiled to the student.
The girl gently placed her on a twig outside the door. Stella sighed, "I'll just wait here on this maple tree branch until the Professor returns. I'll jump onto her hair again, and when she brings me back into that joyful room, I'll show her a few ceili steps."
Jeanne thanked the student, thought to herself, “I could use a Stella right about now! Too bad they don’t allow beer on campus.”
Instead, she searched through her Stella McCartney catalog and made plans to buy a new hat.
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Extra Credit Haiku:
I, dressed in Stella,
he, with Stella beer,
flirting through a stellar night.
