An Adult Child Abuse Survivor Witnesses
Hurricane Katrina
Though I knew the storm was coming,
I had no resources, and I was too small and broken to leave. I put faith in my carefully constructed system of canals and levees meticulously maintained for generations to hold back the ocean’s claim of this unlikely civilization created in exile from oppression. Years of overwork for that which cannot satisfy had reduced once-lush marshlands teeming with life to efficient factory land-use that provided jobs for everyone who knew they regularly danced at the edge of ruin. And so the party raged on loud and garish with a soul full of jazz improvisation and Mardi Gras beads tossed into the inevitable Ash Wednesday tomorrow that was always just over the levee where the tide bode its time lying in port and licking its lips in anticipation as proleptic funeral parades marched toward the shores of death. The hurricane itself was bad enough but I had survived. I was alive. And so I slept only to awaken knee-deep in rising water. that drove me out to a neighbor’s for shelter. But the neighbor’s shelter couldn’t hold back the tide either. Up and up and on up we climbed until, axe in hand, I broke through the attic ceiling. For two long sweltering days I waited. Hungry dehydrated exhausted, I waited. On the rooftop with a God’s-eye view of everything swamped, I waited. No one came. When at last helicopters circled overhead they passed me by in confused convoys headed for sicker people. And so at the mercy of alligators and water moccasins in shit-filled water I swam the River Styx along with other dead bodies, to the presumed safety of public shelter. The nightmares progressed as the sick and dying moaned, babies who could not be consoled cried and other more able-bodied souls just stared into silent shock as though trying to peer through the humid-heavy veil of tears that would not come. And still no help came. Though it was hot as hell and stank to high heaven, sin reigned and raped and looted with few uninformed police left to quell the rising tide of violence. In the chaos, I waited, Clothed only in the quiet panic of despair, hungry and tired and cold in the heat. Armed and ready to kill those roaming to destroy, I vigilantly watched for promised busses that never came. People died waiting for those busses. I would not. So I vowed to strike out on my own, taking my chances in the streets, but the police turned me back and would not let me leave. And still I waited for busses that did not come. It was at this point that I lost consciousness. Evidently, buoyed by a rising tide of support, I was hoisted onto the helicopter counselor's couch and deposited in a foreign land where kind strangers bound my wounds, nourished my body, sang to my soul, helped me pray, and listened to the story, witnessing the pain, providing me the means to provide for myself. Such grace began draining the terror of neglect, scrubbing hope clean enough to begin repair. But who can forget such hell? © 2005 Tess Lockhart. All rights reserved. |