Dragon Kin

04

Alicja

It was still early when I left the house. Oma was in bed sleeping. I left her a note. We had an agreement that she wouldn't hogtie me in my bed at night if I didn't do anything monumentally stupid. Most nights I had no reason to leave the house. I enjoyed reading. Discovering new people, and places. I loved poetry, and music. I played piano, and violin well enough that our neighbors didn't complain if I wanted to play a bit at night.

My hair hung free, without the silk scarves we normally wear. I didn't want to be recognized if I happened to see Ismael out there. I also changed my long skirt for a pair of blue jeans and hiking boots. Footwear was always a difficult choice. It really depended on whether you were going to be walking in the neighborhood, because most of the sidewalks were missing. There were also rough spots in the roads. Practical, was generally the best choice. Comfortable, being the second best. I also left my purse, bringing only my wallet and keys — with my kitty keychain.

I've been told that my kitty keychain is illegal, but then so is rape.

There was never much traffic in the neighborhood. There might be a car come by once an hour at peak times. I strolled down the street toward the bar at the second corner, which was called the Hangover. I've been there a few times. They have good music. The crowd isn't too rowdy. People come to have fun, not get in fights, but that happens too.

Ismael disappeared quickly. There weren't many places around to disappear into. I figured he might be in there, having a few drinks. Did he see what happened? Was he talking about it? That's what I was going there to find out. If he wasn't there, then, maybe I would walk out to the place where it happened, though I had no idea what I might be looking for. A shoe maybe?

Oma was tired, that's what I figured. Otherwise she would agree that this was important. A full grown man disappeared right before he was going to smash an old woman with his fist. He just vanished. No scream. No blood. Nothing. When something like that happens, I want to know how, and why.

It wasn't that I cared about Ben. That wasn't it at all. What I cared about was me. Me and my family, and my clan. If it was a thing that happened, we should know about it and take care. If it was a living thing that happened, was it helping us or just hungry?

Could be a vampire. Hey, don't laugh. This was New Orleans. They were around, though we didn't see them hunting much inside the city. However, if it was super-natural, it was normally entangled with the Voodoo. Oma was an expert of sorts in the gris-gris dolls, potions and talismans of the Voodoo of New Orleans, and Haiti. We had our own beliefs, but she understood and even admired the ways of Voodoo.

Voodoo, however, wasn't a violent belief. Well, not proactively violent. Generally they were more, let's say, reactive. They let things be, until things were wrong. Then they corrected them — and then they let things be.

Like most religions.

Religions are for bringing you closer to your god, not to further entangle you into mankind's activity.

There are exceptions — ours being one of them. I suppose it's a religion. Not very structured, I guess, but it didn't have to be. It was how we lived, which is why I wonder if it should be classified as a religion.

We didn't have the concept of "church" or "holy day." Not meaning something like "the sabbath" or Sunday. For us a holy day was a day of connections. Around here it might be called, A bon couer or 'to do wholeheartedly'. What a psychologist recently described as a state of Flow.

Flow is a state of complete immersion in an activity. While in this mental state, we are completely involved and focused on what we are doing. The ego falls away. Tugs of shame or self-consciousness fall away. There is no judgment except that which helps the activity.