Crescent City Rhapsody

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For Skylar, Jazz, and Sean:

The best is always yet to come.

Rhapsodies by Duke Ellington:

New Orleans Rhapsody

Creole Rhapsody

Rhapsody, Jr.

Swanee River Rhapsody

Rock ’n’ Roll Rhapsody

The baseball-sized objects exploded as they hit Earth’s atmosphere.

All burned to cinders except one.

Marie always knew she would be murdered. Not knowing the details kept her on edge for many years.

In a way, it was a relief when it happened.

Involved in stock reports, Marie felt rather than saw the sky’s gradual blackening; welcomed the slight breath of breeze on her sweat-sheened skin: heard thunder rumble with the distant, primal pleasure she always felt during late summer when storms deluged New Orleans daily.

There was little traffic on her small bricked side street this time of day. As usual, the beat of desultory blues rose from street musicians to her office on the fourth floor of the town house that had been in her family for generations. After their usual noontime skirmish, the appetising smells of hot spices and garlic vanquished the sweetish, sickly smell of spilled beer that cooked up from the bricks around 9 a.m. like steam. Since the corner restaurant had been there for over a century, and the beer for longer than that, these smells were a part of the cycle of the day for Marie and, she liked to think, for a long line of Maries.

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