by Rocky the Diabolical Cat™

I parked my old Saab at the edge of Lake Ponchartrain at nightfall. I unloaded my miniature cat-speedboat onto the ground and placed in it my backpack containing food, drinking water, insulin and syringes. I then pushed off into the water.

As I sped along the surface of the swollen lake the engine of my speedboat emitted a bumblebee-like sound. I thought of my past visits to New Orleans, sang a Fats Domino song and a Dr. John song to myself, then reflected on what it must have been like to be elderly or poor or simply without transportation as the water rose in that bowl called the Big Easy.

A bowl of death, I thought. Still a third under water, smelling of decay, a thousand known dead, many never to be accounted for, many more to be discovered — and Hurricane Rita now hovering in the Gulf. The fur on my spine stood on edge.

What would happen if the motor on my boat gave out? Yes, yes, it’s true that I won a gold medal in the freestyle at the Felinolympics a few years ago ... but swimming a 25-by-50-mile lake? Could it be done? Surely I would not be rescued. I would be on my own.

I took a Clif Bar from my backpack and ate it.

With no electricity in New Orleans — save for when it is turned on for staged appearances by Bush, the head of the junta — there were no lights in the distance, no way to judge my progress. Just darkness.

Darkness.

As I sped along in my tiny boat that night I felt lonely and powerless.

What a conceit, I thought: To be lonely and powerless is to drown in a nursing home in New Orleans. To be continued ...