Prometheus 6

And what was that about upper class Black folks having different interests than middle and lower class Black folks? Huh? What was it? 

Viqi French Fever, a decidedly non-political blog:

One of my closest friends is unaccounted for in New Orleans, is not yet even being searched for in the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Luckily, we finally learned Wednesday that she is alive -- for now. You see, my very decent, hard-working, Jaguar-driving friend Desiree is eerily trapped inside her powerless house in Orleans Parrish and close to starving to death. The car had been troublesome, had broken down a month ago on the very highway-bridge that was destroyed by the hurricane. So she was "stuck" in New Orleans to weather the storm, alone.

At some point, she ventured out of her flooded home and into the waist-high "slop" -- the sewage and remains of the deceased and the rats and wildlife that probably are feeding on them -- with intentions of wading to the Super Dome.

But somewhere along the way, a sheriff stuck a gun in her model-lovely, mocha face and threatened to shoot it off. And then at the Super Dome, when she realized there was no way in hell she'd be able to board a bus to Houston, she decided it was too risky to stay overnight in the pitch blackness with the crowd, which was likely more irritated and anxious than she. So she waded her lanky, upscale self back home. And there she sits and waits...

I imagine what she waits for. For help that she sadly doesn't know may not arrive for another week? Is she sitting there journaling apologies and "I love yous" to those of us who are having omelettes and coffee and typing away at our computers this morning? Or possibly, she is awaiting her death, a way out of the hell-on-Earth her beloved town has become. Despite her patriotic lifetime of tax-paying.

While she waits, she takes cat naps, I imagine. But at some point, she may be too hungry and too tired and too defeated to awaken from what must be nightmarish sleep. Somewhere inside, she may figure that death would be better, her only relief.