She tossed her backpack into the bed of the truck while the door slammed shut behind her.
She had a deep southern accent, long dark brown hair that was extremely curly in nature, and beautiful brown eyes that could bring a man to his knees.
"Name?" she asked.
I had lost where I was in the gaze of the future that I was hoping we would have had together. The future with that white picket fence, children that ran around the yard as they played endlessly, the long wooden patio that wraps around the home with little white rockers that set upon its planks, the chairs creaked as a distant wind that skimmed across the hairs on your skin.
"Hello?"
Everything was perfect, the wedding, the marriage, the sweet love that we had frequently made. And it was absolutely perfect.
"Are you okay?" her hand gripped my shoulder with a nudge.
I snapped right out the day dream, in that entire future we had just lived together. I must know this woman.
I extended my hand for a firm shake, what an idiot, man, a firm handshake with a female? Well, I am not going to hug her. "Uh, it's Forrest."
"You alright?" she asked.
I brushed my hands off against my pant legs that hugged my thighs nervously, chill the fuck out man, it's alright—I thought.
"I'm Forrest."
"What's your name?" Before she could answer, it's as if time had slowed down. She turned my way, and she was gorgeous. I'm screwed.
We danced around what we wanted to say, no more different than a newlyweds first dance. She smiled, her teeth perfect, pure-white, and then, the kiss of death.
"I'm Lily." She said.
Just ask her dude —I thought, "Uh… Where.. where are you going?"
"New Orleans."
As we passed the interstate mile markers, we were haunted by the miles that remained. Sixty miles away. Sixty miles away with no way into the city. I'm already this close. I can't turn back now.
"I know a place, I know this place where we can get a boat." Lily said.
And this is our way in. I snapped the seat belt into its buckle. click.
"I'm in."
Wherever she went, I was there. How couldn't you be? She is beautiful. And you just. kept. staring. Any reason you could find to look. And you did. But you didn't just stop there. You even got into her truck.
Bay St. Louis was desolate and empty from the emergency evacuations. No resident had returned home yet as they await to arrive to see if their home was left standing after a bout with Katrina.
Lily caught me in a glimpse while I hid the obvious, it felt like a mutual attraction. A month drawn into the flame blindly, she seemed the type that could extinguish a flame with her cold touch. And I'd wait for it. And I waited for her to speak. I looked out the window at the blurred and folded landscape. The trees were stripped clean to the bark. The final leaf had fallen, not because of the seasons change, but because of the violent nature of the winds that ripped through the gulf as they shredded what was on shore.
"What's with the camera?" She asked.
I clutched my Nikon F3 in my right hand as it hung around my neck, equipped with a fifty to eighty millimeter telephoto lens. Excellent for zoom photography, extra detail with depth when the film is exposed to light.
"This thing?" I looked down at it with a slight rotation to glance at the lens, "I'm a sucker for capturing the moment."
I had about eighteen exposures left, no wait.. seventeen.
None of that mattered though now that we were at the boat. It was in quite rough shape but it had a motor and two planks to sit on. I was never a boat guy, but I loved to be on them. I owned a Kayak once, what a waste of money. I could've just rented it instead. It would have saved me a bit of money. Although, I did find it just a little funny that we'd ride into New Orleans on one of these. Through the Mississippi River nonetheless. A day or so after Hurricane Katrina passed through. We didn't even know how many were killed. We didn't really know how bad the storm had hit. We just knew that it was bad. Really bad. In fact, people were killed. Violently. Trapped in their attics, drowned in the homes they had grown up in. The home that little Susie from down the road, little Susie would pass Barbara's, who lived on the corner, every Thursday to pick up milk for her baby brother at the market. The flood waters rose as high as two stories in her home. Her mother screamed as the overflow from Lake Ponchartrain flooded into their home as it pinned them against the ceiling. Little Susie's mother had watched little Susie take her last breath. Little Susie's baby brother wouldn't get his milk that followed the last. Because little Susie had drowned in her attic. And her brother wouldn't need the milk anyways—because he had drowned in the attic too of course.
But we couldn't be sure just how bad the storm was.
We got into the boat, started the motor but not without a slight struggle. There was some back and forth with the pull chord, we let it set for a moment. I pulled the pull chord once more, then another time. Nothing yet. One more pull. The boat wouldn't start. If the boat wouldn't start, then that meant we were stuck. If we were stuck, then how was I suppose to get into the city. And if I couldn't get into the city, how could I find my brother? And if I couldn't find my brother, how would I know he is alive and okay?
I gave it another pull. The engine sputtered and started up. And we road off into the bay, and out into the gulf, and then up the river. And into New Orleans.
It was in the early hours of the day, shortly before the sun had risen. The time of day when the stars in the night sky are still visible as it changes color to a baby blue with a little bit of haze that cast over it. The moon only slightly full dipped to the opposite side of the horizon. Almost as if it watched us move into the river. It crept further—the moon of course—towards the edge of our planet. Our planet that sat in the middle of space, surrounded by who knows how many other: stars, galaxies, planets, and moons. And we watched it back, we used it for navigation through the gulf in the darkness. I never had any luck with photos in the darkness. Even though I had adjusted my shutter speed for a longer exposure to allow for more light to pass through the lens. But it wasn't the shutter speed that was the problem—it was me. I couldn't stand still long enough to capture one properly. But this time I would. Although I wouldn't know until the film is developed. Because this isn't a digital camera and my preference was film and I thought the quality was much better and the photos just looked cool.
"Are you thirsty?" Lily asked.
But I would have to have someone else develop the film for me because I didn't know how to do it. I just paid someone else to do it and I'd pick it up from them after a couple days time. Something about the suspense and excitement waiting for your photos to turn out. And its easy to remember every single exposure once you see it in film.
"Thirsty?" She asked again.
But that is what I loved about film. Photography in general. It was my escape in the world through the view finder. Oddly enough—I thought I had been more present in that moment, but I wasn't. I raised the viewfinder anyways because that's what I loved to do. I adjusted the zoom lens with a slow clockwise rotation that gently twisted with my left hand. I took the shot. She had waved her hand in front of the lens, as she blocked the view of the moon. She handed me the water bottle from her pack, I took a drink. Sixteen exposures left now I suppose.
After a few hours, we had finally made it to the river. The early morning sun with a heavy dose of humidity applied directly to our skin, our shirts stuck to our bodies drenched in sweat. The mosquitoes of the swamp hummed in the dozens. No wait, hundreds. They'd fly right by each ear in an annoying chaos that couldn't be stopped. And they were relentless. They were almost as annoying as the chore that little Susie's mom gave her, the one where she'd have to get her baby brother milk on Thursdays, as she passed Barbara's home, on the corner as she rode on her bike. But she didn't have to do that chore anymore thankfully. That was because her baby brother had drowned in the attic after Katrina hit. And so did she. Thankfully, I had a can of bug spray in my pack but it didn't seem to help too much. I wasn't really sure what the purpose of bug spray was if it never seemed to work in the first place. It was just another reason to spend money, and unfortunately. I was bad with money, really bad. But maybe not that bad—I thought.
The biotic beings of the bayou song their songs, but first the crickets to play the rhythm in a sequence of ticks. Secondly, the bullfrogs croaked with a guttural, yet distinct, creep. They talked to one another from the mud and to the base of the trees. The bayou was alive. Fish splashed periodically at the surface level of the murky water, or maybe they were the alligators. Captain Lou on his pontoon had boated these banks before the blistering sun had bullied him from what I remembered my last time down here. He had the head of a twelve foot gator at the wheel of his boat.
"You can feed them," he said, and then adding just as he adjusted to miss the marsh to avoid making matters much worse. After all, many men had been married to the muck at the bottom of this swamp for many years. That was—of course whatever was left of him by the time his ligaments had hit the bottom. A passing finger that was chopped off slowly wavered through the water, towards the bottom. Then the gator got it. In fact, after I had looked around, hundreds of nocturnal eyes stared as they watched us pass through.
The air filled with ghostly howls in the distance and a mist that saturated the surface with a thick residue stuck to our sweat, that stuck to our skin. I couldn't remember the last time that I was as deeply uncomfortable. Memories flurried around in my mind just one after another. I scanned every single moment in my life from which I could recall. Every single one, then one had come to mind. A time when I was younger, just a young innocent boy, my father would chase me around the home, we'd wrestle as we played. We laughed, we joked, it was a blast. My real father had left my mother when she had found out she was pregnant with me. But then she met the man who had raised me. He took me outside to play ball, we played video games together, it was so much fun. Just after we'd wrestle, he'd hold me down and spit on me. His wet saliva slowly dripped from his mouth as he puckered his lips. A thick ooze descended slowly until it reached my nose. I turned my head since my hands were pinned by his hands—he was much stronger than me, after all.. I was only a little boy.
And then one day I got a little older, and he started to fall asleep when you talked to him. At first it was maybe every other week, then once a week, then a couple of times a week, and then every day. Mid-conversation with him and then mumble himself to sleep, he had always worked so hard and work had just worn him down he told my brother and I. And then his teeth started to fall out of his head, gums turned black, and a terrible stench-filled breath pumped out of his lungs and into the atmosphere. It wilted away the plants nearby, their leaves had fallen rather quickly to the tabletops. And then things around the home started to vanish. My vacation funds that I had saved over the months I pulled weeds out of my grandmas garden. Then my toys. Then my video games. And then eventually our friends belongings had gone missing. And then we lost all of our friends.
Lily had pushed the household debris in the path out of our way with a spare oar found on board. After a few hours, we had finally made it to the river. The early morning sun with a heavy dose of humidity applied directly to our skin, our shirts stuck to our bodies drenched in sweat. The mosquitoes of the swamp hummed in the dozens. No wait, hundreds. They'd fly right by each ear in an annoying chaos that couldn't be stopped. And they were relentless. They were almost as annoying as the chore that little Susie's mom gave her, the one where she'd have to get her baby brother milk on Thursdays, as she passed Barbara's home, on the corner as she rode on her bike. But she didn't have to do that chore anymore thankfully. That was because her baby brother had drowned in the attic after Katrina hit. And so did she. Thankfully, I had a can of bug spray in my pack but it didn't seem to help too much. I wasn't really sure what the purpose of bug spray was if it never seemed to work in the first place. It was just another reason to spend money, and unfortunately. I was bad with money, really bad. But maybe not that bad—I thought.
"We should rest soon." She said.
"Where?"
She sighed, flustered. She scanned the surface slowly with her flashlight. Most of the ground cover was submerged beneath the brackish water. She scanned from left to in front of her, and then slowly to her right. She had turned to face the east and repeated her motions. She leaned forward as she squinted her eyes, her arm raised slowly almost as if she were carefully threading a needle through the last stitch on a quilted blanket. "There's something over there."
I looked to the east and in her spotlight, a busted shanty that somehow survived the storm. Barely. It was dilapidated, derelict even, dare I say—I had a change of thought.
"You want to rest there?" I was puzzled. My face flinched and closed my eyes in disbelief. "There? Are you sure?"
"There." She said. And there we will go. For she was hungry once again.