Monday, August 29th, 2005 4:30 AM Please.

This post is the ninth part in a series. To start at the beginning, please click here.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but something woke me up. Probably a cat. I can't get back to sleep, the reason for which you'll see in a minute, so I'm back here, trying to make sense of all of this or at least put it down so I can make sense of it later. I just don't know.

I walked out to the kitchen to get some water or juice or something and my mother was in the living room sitting on a chair, not the couches, but a dining room chair. It took me a minute to register what was going on. She had her pajamas on and was parked not two feet from my aunt's giant television. I could see her face in its glow and she was quietly sobbing, her shoulders shaking. The ice in her glass tinkled with every shudder. I walked around behind her, put mu cheek on the top of her head and my arms around her shoulders. "Momma. What are you doing out here?" She didn't answer me.

I looked up at the TV and and there she was in all her glory, the beautiful and terrible Katrina. The volume was muted. We just watched her, this picture from another universe, an impossible picture, as she swept silently toward Louisiana and consumed the coastline, the entire state. And then back out, rolling in again with those beautiful bands and her perfect eye. Creeping in, jumping back out. Over and over again. I have no idea how long we stayed that way. I put my cheek on hers and realized I had started crying, too. "Don't worry, Momma. It will turn. It will. They always do."... "No, baby, I don't think so. Not this time."

After a while, I got up and left her there.

It has to turn. It HAS to. I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't.

Please God, if you're there, if you were ever there, please make it turn away. Please. I'm sorry. Please just forgive me and MAKE IT TURN!

please

fuck