FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE revisited

 {Image Courtesy of Stevie Z Photography}

Friends have asked to see a bit of my novel, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. So here are a few paragraphs from the first chapter.


“Our Nation is prepared, as never before, to deal
quickly and capably with the consequences of
disasters and domestic incidents.”

--FEMA chief Michael D. Brown - March 09, 2005
 
Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans August 29, 2005


CHAPTER ONE

It rained lies and death today.

I stood knee-deep in water outside my French Quarter jazz club, Meilori’s. It was a place in which almost anything was likely to happen and in which almost everything had. 

Inside, the fifty-one survivors of Katrina that I could house were huddled in shivering, too quiet clusters. 

Words have no meaning when a city dies. Nothing much does.

My soul stretched tight across my chest. Everything I saw in the shadows spoke to me ... in threats. 

The sudden, short explosion of an unseen gun. A quick, sharp scream in the distance. And the blue spurt of a lighted match at the far end of the street. 

My city bled slowly in the ripples of the flooded streets.

Somewhere distant in the hot, red darkness a shot rang out. Another called out to it like a wolf. But it came from a different direction.

I smiled bitterly. The predators had crawled out from their boarded shelters. They knew the restraint of law had died this day. Soon they would come for me.

You see, I had enemies. And not all of them were human. But that was all right. I wasn't human either.

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If you like what you read, let me know. If not, let me know how I could improve. Thank all of you for caring to drop by.

Here's a song about hope and Hurricane Katrina :