RAINY DAY BLOGFEST_YOU CAN ONLY SPEND IT ONCE_GHOST OF A CHANCE Interlude

{"Life is like a coin.

You can spend it any way you wish,

but you can only spend it once."


- Mark Twain.}

Ghost of Samuel Clemens here. Roland was a blogfest loving fool. He entered Christine's RAINY DAY blogfest.

http://thewritershole.blogspot.com/2010/08/announcing-rainy-day-blogfest.html

I dug around in the innards of his computer contraption and found this :

{After Katrina, Samuel McCord, the man who cannot die, and his best friend, Renfield, the vampire priest

are sloshing their way to be helped or be killed by the undead Marie Laveau} :

As we stepped out into the night's light mist of rain, the black fog curled and creamed in the muggy air like a demon from the Other Side trying to take shape.

Crucified high in the sable sky, the moon of blood admired its reflection on the dark waters of the still flooded street.

Ripples of its long bloody image flowed from the floating dead body of a dog, like tiny red streams bleeding from its lonely soul.

The night suddenly became colder than it should have been. Much colder. And in an odd sense distant. Cold and distant like the promises of lost love.

I turned to Renfield. "Still want to come with me to Marie Laveau's?"


He went paler than I thought possible, but said, "I can take care of myself, Sam."


I nodded but still felt as isolated as a lost ship at sea. The night had become as intimate as a knife fight -- and about as friendly.


New Orleans was a city of the dead and the dying and not much else. The stink of death was thick in the air. Dead creatures still floated down the streets and over the sidewalks. Bloated-bellied dogs, cats, rats, and even one dead drug addict, finally at peace.


I spotted one death-swollen deer as I waded beside a strangely silent Renfield. Flattened birds were feathered pancakes on some club fronts we passed.


What had Thoreau written? “Our lives revolve unceasingly, but the center is ever the same. And the wise will only regard the seasons of the soul.”


The seasons of the soul.


I looked up into the endless sable depths between the stars. I felt like the wolf staring up into the dark universe, who never learns why he must live like he does. But still he sings to the moon. One lonely spirit to another.


We were almost there, near Rue Burgandy and Rampart Street. The night was still not my friend. Too much recent death had set the night trembling with vengeful, wandering souls.


Spirits, lost and angry, were trudging beside us. Because of Death's blood in my veins, I could see them slowly circling us as they had that night as I walked to the Convention Center.


Their shuffling feet were heavy behind us then grew silent. They flowed inches above the flooded sidewalk until they paced us. I could feel the touch of their sunken, hungry eyes on my throat.


If these dead wanted to drink from the living, they had come to a dry well with me and Renfield.


My face grew tight as I spotted the strangely untouched building in front of us. The fine mist dripping from the brim of my Stetson, I stopped at the elegant house I had been looking for.


We were at the home of the undead Marie Laveau.
***