Note to the hard of think­ing: This is a work of fic­tion! I live thou­sands of miles away from, and have never been to, New Orleans.

“Haven’t you heard?” enquired the woman in the cof­fee shop as I turned up there dur­ing my morn­ing break. I con­fessed that I hadn’t.

“We’ve been ordered to evac­u­ate! The whole city!” she con­tin­ued, with the look of a gos­siper rather than a wor­rier grac­ing her eyes.

“‘Cos of the hur­ri­cane?” I asked. “Hah! We’ve had worse, and my house is still stand­ing. I ain’t run­ning from some storm!”

“Yeah, well said!” She looked relieved, a strange expres­sion to see from some­one who hadn’t even given a hint of being wor­ried in the first place. “Usual?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I tossed her the change for the cof­fee, and sat down to drink it and read the paper.

That was four days ago, and I haven’t had a cof­fee or read the paper since. I don’t even know if there’s been a local paper since that morn­ing. There is no food, no water… There’s noth­ing at all up here, up on this slant­ing slate-tiled island above the world’s new sub­ur­ban sea.

I’d been right, of course — this house weath­ered the storm with hardly a scratch. It was built to with­stand that kind of thing. Sadly, like pretty much every­thing else around here, it wasn’t built to with­stand six feet of flood water. The tim­bers below me creak alarm­ingly, as if the whole thing were about to slip its moor­ings and float down the road. I keep los­ing roof tiles, too — as every hour goes by there is less and less to stand on.

The sound of rotor blades over­head sig­nals the return of the sol­diers, the angels of death. They take us away slowly, one by one, sick and injured first. I’m still healthy, though, so I must sit here and watch oth­ers escape while I slowly dehy­drate on my own roof.

They don’t come to take away the dead. Those angels that arrive in boats search the houses, and paint red crosses on the doors of those in which they find bod­ies. It might be the clos­est to a head­stone they ever get, the mark of an angel on their door as their bod­ies slowly rot away into the filthy water.

There’s no hope left here; all the hope­ful ones are long gone from this city.

A crash­ing sound from the dis­tance indi­cates that the loot­ers have found a nearby shop, some­where that the water is shal­low, and are lib­er­at­ing food and water for themselves.

I won­der if I should join them — after all, I’m just as much in need of sup­plies as they are.

There’s no law here, now, just us. No jus­tice, no mercy, no hope, no hon­our… Just the rats who can’t escape their sink­ing ship.

Gun­fire sounds in the dis­tance, and I instinc­tively reach for the fully-loaded pis­tol wedged between my belt and the back of my jeans. It feels almost com­fort­ing to touch — my pro­tec­tion, my last remain­ing possession.

I made up my mind, and I don’t regret it. I’m drenched from the swim — who isn’t, in this city? — but I’m not hun­gry or thirsty any more. We’re armed and dan­ger­ous and free, run­ning the streets, alive at last in this mon­u­ment to death.

A cloud of smoke blows over us, thick and chok­ing, blown on the wind from the burn­ing chem­i­cal plant by the lake­side. It obscures every sense. My ears are thick with it, my lungs burn and my eyes sting and water.

Through that haze I never noticed the armoured vehi­cle pull up behind me, never saw the marine aim his rifle, never heard his words — “Sir, please put down your gun. Put down your gun. This is your final warn­ing, drop your-”

The smoke cleared as quickly as it had arrived, and I could hear again.

“-gun now!”

I turned, star­tled by the sud­den shout. Turned towards the source of the noise. Not hav­ing heard the warn­ings, I kept the gun in my hand, fin­ger on the trigger.

A sin­gle, sharp burst of noise.

A sin­gle, sharp sliver of metal.

And my world went black.

I was wrong, there is still one law here. Shoot to kill. For us and for them, the same. Shoot to kill.

No angels came to take me to heaven. Even the black angels with their guns and armour left me on the ground, for­got­ten, my body just another of Katrina’s legacies.

There’s no hope left here; all the hope­ful ones are long gone from this city.