An Account of New Orleans “Nawlins”

I woke up here a few days ago. My clothes were gone and I was only scantily clad in some mangled foreign garb. Symbols stitched haphazardly to my lapels vaguely resemble characters from long ago. The damp rags clung to my torso and legs; causing me to go rigid with discomfort.

My feet are bare and saturated to the fullest extent with this disease infested water. The balls of my feet are dimpled as the moon above; haven’t bothered to move them in hours. The nail and cuticle at the end of each finger and toe has grown three fold in the passed day. I used to own a set of trimmers; I can only assume they are still somewhere beneath me.

Periodicals periodically float by; months old. They are of no use to me now; headlines from weeks ago drifting passed proclaiming nothing but yesterdays news. Out of reach and coated in sediments; sentiments from the outsiders.  The trees that reside in what was my rear quarter are now shrubs. Seemingly 12 feet shorter than what I remember from yesterday.
“How is it that I have become a resident in this twisted version of reality?” I said.

“I should move.”

Knees cracking louder than the electrically charged timbers of days gone by. Feet sticking resiliently to tar and chip shingles. Pruned, flesh a painful shade of pink, gingerly I make my way to the opposing side of the island.
“James and Healy.”

There should be a pair of rectangular green signs over there that read James and Healy. The slate island across the street has no inhabitants. As well as the copper one next to it. “Where have they all gone?”
“Hopefully somewhere better deary.” she said.

Off to my left is Mrs. Dangle; She’s O.K. except for some minor abrasions on her feet and hands. She is an incredibly large senior with a wit sharper than Hackoms Razor. She waits patiently at the highest point of her island; in an orange beach chair that straddles the peak. Her stare is always set on the vacant sea that occupies the area formerly known as “acrossed the way.”

Her face has gone gray; or it went that way yesterday anyway. A long frayed and filthy nightgown, complete with decintigrating lace, lays on her drenched torso. The details and secrets of her ancient anatomy sent into the open long ago. One dangling, lever back ear ring missing; half the charms on her necklace as well.

Waiting. She’s waiting, not helping; not trying to get any further. I can’t help.

“ I think I’m going to go now?”

The words escaped my mouth prematurely and ended up sounding more like a question than the statement it was intended to be. Her eyes nearly leapt from her island to mine; the expression of fear could have been read from the moon. She moved her feet which were stuck steadfast to the shingles as mine were. The skin being pulled from between the granules of sand and stone made an audible ripping sound. She strode towards the edge of her island slowly as her bones gave way too movement. Her hip operates in a fashion that would boggle the mind of even the most astute of surgeons. It seems to travel 5-6 inches vertically with every step; giving the impression that it isn’t fully connected to the rest of her body.

Mrs. Dangle had finally made it to the edge of her world and deposited some saliva in the gutters as she looked me in the eye. Her cold, tired blue eyes yelling volumes of silent pleas at me. She had most of a mail box, which looked as if it had been run over by something, propped under her arm as a make shift cane. With a trembling wax paper voice she told me that I had best not come back; “less I had a boat or a plane.”

If her arms were four feet longer, or if she was holding a two by four she could have smacked me. A few minutes passed. Birds flew over head to the north as I stare at what is left of myself in the murky mud water.

“Where do you think your going?” I asked myself aloud.

“Yeah, where are you going?” she said

Along with the voice, the question hit me like a ton of bricks. Where would I go? A body as emaciated as mine can only retain it’s buoyancy for just so long.

“Someone a few blocks over in the ‘New World Development’ has a canoe” I said. The phrase was drowned under my breathe much like some of my neighbors.
“I remember them driving passed my house with it fastened to their Jeep”
All she did was stare at me. I could tell she was trying against all odds to remember the vision I was holding in my head at that very moment.
“It’s in the garage” was the last thing she said to me for several days.
I knew that I could never make it around the block with the rapids raging over what used to be SUVs and other debris that had been swept into my front yard. I waited for some time. In fact, I waited for an entire day before I found the opportunity that was waiting for me. It was swept up like so many other discarded pieces of civilization and those who inhabited it.

A life preserver, which I assume used to belong to a Coast Guard ship, jolted me from what I used to call sleep just before dawn. The small, orange, inner tube-like object was hammering away at the remnants of my gutter.
“I used to hammer metal like that at a job I had as a sheet metal worker. How long has it been since I’ve been to the factory?” I whispered to myself trying to preserve Mrs. Dangles sleep like that ring would my life.
The U.S.S Navarone, the guns of which are now only my weakened biceps. To my surprise the water was even colder than I was. I couldn’t think of a better way to enter the ring other than just jumping in; arms stretched like a crucifix. The landing was rough enough to tear some of the remaining flesh from beneath my shoulder blades.

The moment I spent underwater seemed to stretch on for months. I tried to but couldn’t resist revealing my eyes to the plethora of hazardous materials that lay beneath the surface. I could see people caught up in their last moments of confusion as well as the branches and debris that held them there. Kids toys were tumbling along on the pavement in the current, I too was undoubtedly caught up in as well. Pets still tethered loosely to the posts that would be their demise.
The surface and the sky were a sight for my bloodshot and soar eyes. I could feel the millions of microscopic freeloaders burrowing hastily into the outer layers of my eyes.

Yet another moment that has unexpectedly erased everything I thought I knew. Everything was new again. Never seen my island from this angle. Never seen Mrs. Dangle like this; never seen angry, resentful, pitiful eyes appear so very tall.
I waved. She nodded vacantly.

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