As A Child He’d Been Told

Iron balconies blocked centuries-old New Orleans storefronts from the cruel noonday sun. Slim fingers tipped with chipped claws reached from cracks between the bricks. Sweaty tourists ducked through tall French doors left open to the humidity, the seeking fingers invisible to them.

Thomas saw them. He let their claws snag at his raveling sweater, their bird-black eyes peering out at him as he searched the streets.

As a child, he’d been told one of these ancient buildings welcomed people like him. “Like what?” he’d asked. Stern-eyed adults merely shook their heads and turned away.

Absently plucking a black feather from his sleeve, Thomas scanned the Creole restaurants, antique shops, and coffee bars. He paused at an abandoned building, its crooked shutters latched over blank-eyed windows, hearing a distant strain of jazz.

A woman stood in the middle of the street, studying the same building through dark glasses. She seemed unconcerned that the car dodging tourists and honking its horn headed straight for her. A heartbeat before it hit, she exploded into a murder of crows and disappeared.

Thomas jogged to the spot she’d left vacant to see what she’d seen.

“Midnight Jazz Club” glowed in neon over the once abandoned building. A crescent moon hung in the night sky, even as the sun shone full in his face. The crow woman nodded to him from the entrance. Her glasses reflecting a beak-nosed man in a sweater of woven feathers, seeking others like himself, before she joined the raucous crowd inside.

Photo Composite by Julia V Ashley
Original Photos by Thamyres Silva & David Reynolds