Panther Prattle

Because Cougars Are Not the Coolest Cats

I balance a vase filled with fresh beginning flowers as I casually strut, what would be the walk of shame if I were terminated.

"Hi everyone, how is it going?" I call in the direction of the Smokers' Area after one of the puffers waves, Hello.

"Panther," snarls Amina, the perpetual Temporary, after she shoots a plume of haze out of her lungs.

"Not a cougar, a panther," she continues before she cranes her neck and launches spit toward a scruffy, grey squirrel.

"A panther is a cougar," retorts Malik when I walk past.

"Similar, not the same," answers Amina when she flicks a burning butt into an urn filled with black sand.

I gingerly place the vase on the asphalt, just beyond the driver's door, root through my purse, then tap my key fob twice to disengage the locks and alarm.

The scrape of heels against concrete prompts me to glance left, and I watch as Malik turns his wrestler's frame in my direction.

He scans the shadeless parking lot, plucks a cigarette from the pocket of a migraine-inducing Hawaiian shirt, and stabs it between lips too thin to run as much as possible.

I flip the seatback forward, lift the vase and pour most of the liquid contents onto the hot asphalt, place it snuggly on the floorboard, then return the seatback to its original position.

I slide into the driver's seat, rev the engine, crank the air conditioning, and watch Amina toss a generic lighter and call, "Heads up," in Malik's direction.

He sweeps the lighter into his palm, rolls the barrel producing a feeble flame, lifts it to the end of his death stick, inhales, then asks, "What is the difference?"

Amina rummages through a cream and teal backpack resting between her feet.

She pulls a large bottle of perfume out, raises it to her tanned neck, and pumps the atomizer.

Malik bats his eyelids twice, hacks a cough, and demands, "Easy on the toilet water."

"Eye color," comments Amina when she lifts her chin in my direction.

Malik opens his mouth, but before he can speak, she adds, "Panthers have emerald-green eyes."

Malik's chest rises as he pulls deeply on the cigarette and floods his lungs with stress-releasing tobacco chemical compounds.

He swallows, a cloak of smoke spirals from his nostrils, then he replies, "I don't get it,"

I shift into reverse, back three feet into the drivable lane, turn the steering wheel right, then shift into drive.

I glance left and catch Malik stabbing his cigarette butt to extinguishment on the tabletop.

I crack the window and listen when jackdaws squaw something akin to, "Panther's roar," four times in a row.