Her son's birth: ouch. Searing pain, a brief blackout. Doctors sniped at each other, their faces twisted ugly behind surgical masks. A nurse shook her head as if to apologize.

Still, the baby was healthy. Gurgles, dimpled knees, diapers filled with green goo.

She e-mailed photos to her husband. "I love you so much hon," he said, through long-distance crackle. He couldn't wait to come home, and meet his son.

I wasn't surprised when Kenny drank himself to death--saddened, yes, but he'd as much as told me he would. I even watched him do it for a while, until it got too damn depressing. I would've done anything to help him, I mean, he was my best friend, but it was too late for Kenny almost before it began.

I knew a lady once--and she was a lady, not just a woman--who loved alcohol the way some people love their children. We used to sit in a bar over on Gilbert Street and argue for hours. I tried to talk her into leaving the hooch behind, but her red-rimmed eyes just kept sweeping back and forth along the bottles lined up behind the bar.

Harold Jeffery came home from work tired and beaten. The sun had worked him over hard all day, as he had worked on a driveway for a rich lady in town by the name of Melanie Harrows. Her driveway was long and taking more days of preparation than he had anticipated. He had lost a worker earlier in the week and now he only had Don Stead working for him, and Don Stead was all right, young and a good worker. Stead knew his stuff about concrete. The man who had quit, Darrel Brugger, had been an excellent finisher, at least when he showed up.

How do we justify our morbidity when faced with true horror? We, the revelers and writers of fake fears, and dreamt up demons. How do we justify our fanciful imaginings when faced with a truth that puts it all to shame?

I had half written a different sort of rant. Like the rest of the sleeping country, I was oblivious of what foul beast towards Bethlehem crept: Katrina.

Anyone of good conscious has been horrified by what has occurred. And though the tragedy started with a storm, and was compounded by a flood, it is the all too human elements that hit us hardest. The families unable to save the elderly, the abandonment of the bodies of loved ones, humans plucked from trees and rooftops. And then there are the crimes that in light of the tragedy can only be called abominations. Rape, murder, complete brutality. I dare not even begin, if you have read or watched --you know.