ILL-MET IN MOONLIGHT

 

Never meet a Voodoo Queen at Midnight

ILL-MET IN MOONLIGHT

“Life is like the oil in an oldhurricane lamp. How long it lasts depends on how long you burn and how high you flame.”

- Marie Leveau

 

Next midnight found me at myusual spot: sitting as far as possible from St. Marok’s at the fanged gate.

Of course, the world I saw atthat time of night in this stretch of the French Quarter was hardly uplifting. 

But I could imagine that just beyond the dilapidated buildings Icould see were homes …

Homes filled with … not saints … 

but just simple people who cared for one another, who watched out for eachother … 

who gave a damn if the other lived, died … or cried quietly alone inhis cot curled up like some stupid baby.

Sure, it was a fairy tale … butbetter than the Brothers Grim fairy tale I found myself living day after day.

I watched the thick fog cream andboil like a thought struggling to form at the edge of consciousness.

What formed wasn’t a thought buta nightmare.

Marie Laveau, dressed all inblack, looking ready to attend a funeral.

“Yours, boy. What kind of foolare you? Going to the Grey Man’s party to spare a Grunch?”

Obviously, news of the idiotvariety traveled fast. I guessed that happened when you could read minds. Ihoped she didn’t mind light reading.

I smiled sourly. “You tell me. You seem to knoweverything.”

“Ha! I knowed everything, Iwouldn’t have been cursed by the Grey Man.”

I noted her grammar slipped whenshe was upset. “How did that happen?”

“Unlike you, boy, I not a blabbermouth.”

I smiled wide. “But on the bright side, you’repretty.”

Her eyes became cruel. “But notas pretty as that spook librarian whose lips you will never kiss.”

It was obvious that she could notpass any open wound without scattering some salt into it. “Gee, tell mesomething I don’t know.”

“All right, since you asked sonice: 

the Grey Man done moved you up some days ahead in Time. He can do stufflike that. This be Monday … and he re-invited that even spookier nun and yourprecious heavenly librarian.”

Her smile widened, lost allsemblance of authenticity. “Maybe he want to kill her right in front of you tomorrow night …slow. Your very own trick for Halloween.”

“Feel free to leave any time,ma’am.”

She left, but she left behind faintechoes of mocking laughter.

 “For one human being to loveanother: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work forwhich all other work is but preparation.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

This is really a mystic, evocative tune: