Enjoy the Silence
Personal blog post after Hurricane Katrina
What struck me most were the spray-painted search codes on each of the houses. My city had been reduced to a Monopoly board tagged with chalk by green plastic army men. The emptiness was pervasive, like inhaling negative incense. There was almost no one around. When another human was sensed, we would automatically check each other psychically and return to our task. Friend or foe? Military or civilian?
We rode up Napoleon and watched the water lines rise and the greenery die. Moored to blank traffic lights, bottoms of boats slept on streets, awaiting their own delayed rescue. The floodwaters were like billowing silk curtains behind which a horrific diva maniacally dressed, then were sucked offstage to leave a diorama of mechanic sea creatures and rooftop remnants that never should have met. A red helicopter lay crunched and belly-up like a welded beached whale. Each sight begged an imaginary movie to relive the screams and the flailing arms and the rushing currents, as I tried to mentally piece it all together with memories of media and stories and with evidence and sense.
It became more real to me, finally.