There's a delicate silence in the decimated neighborhoods of New Orleans. Every so often, a pedestrian or two walk by and you can only hear broken glass and busted concrete under their shoes. Water sits in muddy pits in unkempt yards. Signs are bent at their base but still standing. Streetlights don't work but remain in place (or slightly tilted) as reminders of invention and function and necessity in a bustling urban environment.
Much of NOLA stands as artifact; each house we passed by signified someone's life - in more than just monetary terms. It is almost a museum; a day in time captured and decaying; it reminds me of the destruction of Pompeii - the occurrance of a disaster and daily lives were frozen in one place. In New Orleans, they are on a steady track to decay - mold making them dangerous and constant moisture rising from the wet ground absorbing into everything.
What reached me was this silence and this stillness. Rows and rows of houses, yet ours were the only voices we could hear. Our footsteps were the only footsteps. You could hear the wind rattling some loose debris. It is fossilization; a disaster, the decline of a sub-civilization in a place and time where possibilities could allow for so much more.
Nothing moved; how is nothing moving when the world around NOLA is moving at the fast American pace? So much sitting, so much waiting, so much of nothing. So much infrastructure remains untouched, there is no construction, there are no electricians or plumbers riding around in vans. Looking into the windows of houses, seeing toys and toilets and whatever else lying in front yards - you cannot help but wonder, where are these people? Did they give up?
Do they have pets?
Did they have pets?
1.5 years later, and NOLA is still static.
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