I enter through the side door because I seem to have misplaced my key for the

front door, as if that matters now. It takes a few jiggles and some sweet-talk to get the

door loosened from the jamb; the broken window next to the door could just as easily

have been a suitable entryway. However, I choose to use the doorway perhaps to regain

some sense of normalcy lost in the past two weeks of exile. Hurricane Katrina tore

through the city leaving destruction and somehow taking all sense of reality with her.

Sleeping in a new hotel room every few days while drowning in a sense of dread and

unknowing, not to mention the ever-surmounting credit charges, can easily leave a

person's perception of reality distorted. The damage seems irreparable. Before I left this

was my home, now I stand amidst the fractured shell of a house. One deep breath of stale,

moldy air and the cleanup begins; this is all that's left.