Day Four

No sleep, again. Fourth night.

All these worries about food and supplies. A traffic jam in my head. Piled on top of fears for the future of my family. On top of constantly missing my wife and my children. On top of regret for moving down here one week before the storm. On top of regret for regretting my move down here. I know I’m obsessing. I keep running over these same thoughts and scenarios endlessly. Like a bad movie looping behind my eyelids.

Compound the obsessive worrying with the sweating. Then mix in a dash of refueling the generator every couple of hours. And the result is my nearly complete lack of sleep.

My head feels like it came into repeated, prolonged contact with a very large fist. My neck is an inflexible piece of rebar. Everything aches. My eyes are burning.

And I need to puke if I move too fast.

Thus begins Day Four in the wake of Katrina.