And now a word from my sponsor, who is NOT a prosopagnosian.  AN EXCEPT FROM THE BEATITUDES….SEE MY PREVIOUS POSTS FOR MORE INFORMATION!  a Pinch and Scrimp Adventure!!!

We stood alone on the shore. We faced the softening iridescent Louisiana sky, pink morning nebulas underslung and heavy. The dissipating mist touched my face, and memories of my childhood came flooding back.  I wanted my mother, the touch of my father’s hand, the smell of ripe persimmons, the rolling sound of prayers that bless and promise that there will be no children sacrificed here, they will not be fed to the people’s gluttony. Ripples of mortal angst passed over me as though I were being taunted for living, for believing that I could change the course of events that the White Army has set in motion.  I clinched my jaw, made my hands into compress fists, and focused on the amphetamine edge that I knew would get me through the next few days. And then I smiled and turned to Pinch. She was only a reflection of the rising sun, an iron cloud that threatened to vanish.

 “I think that if I blink now, you will disappear and all that has gone before, your death, the murders, Delcambre, our journey through the hole in the world, will have been just a fantastic story the stuff of movies and repressed lives,” I whispered.

            “Go ahead, blink,” said Pinch.  Her voice was smooth and lyrical, a song long lost to the caprices of history.

            I closed my eyes and waited and made a wish as a child would upon entering a new phase of life; then I looked at where she stood.  She was still there and beautiful and whole as ever.  My ghost. 

“I guess that was all real.  Kind of like Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities; we were recalled to life and went on a journey only to discover about ourselves. Let’s go,” I said. “I’m starving.”  “Recalled to life,” said Pinch, nodding and smiling at me.  “I like that. I think I’ll use it at some special occasion.”

            We sat at a small café that served croissant sandwiches and very strong French Market coffee. I ordered three andouille smoked sausage sandwiches with everything, including red onions sliced thick, and jalapenos. I asked for a whole pot of coffee and chicory.  I had taken a small table in the courtyard, behind a large azalea bush, its deep crimson buds full and thick with spring, so that we could talk out our course of investigation, how we would proceed.  I didn’t think that we had much choice but to accept what we learned from our sojourn in purgatory, or at least I intended to make two lists: tangible evidence and knowledge that makes the evidence plausible.  It was inductive reasoning, but then again from a generous mosaic of events, facts, and clues, supernatural or not, comes a chronicle of what may be a great big plot.  Let’s put it this way: I wasn’t a lawyer trying to build a case in front of a jury, so I could erect an edifice of assumptions that would lead me to more information.  Okay, I was making quite a few leaps of faith.  But time was running out and I didn’t think I could live through another child’s death thinking I’d hesitated because a fact didn’t come up and slap me in the face. The White Army had left significations; rosaries, books, bottles of rancid water, or was it piss, cohorts, and a trail that seemed rife with deep footprints, as though I was being lead me into a trap.  Harlan had shown no fear, his soul had vaporized long ago, and I truly believed now that we had passed through a wayward purgatory and I was the means by which the army intended to sanctify the murders.