Author’s Note Before you start reading, let me be real with you. This here ain’t some polished tale or a story cooked up when the world finally lined up right. Nah, this comes straight outta the thick of everyday life the mess, the noise, the steam rising from the streets and the kitchens, where folks keep moving and surviving and figuring it out as they go. From standing in the kitchen while things were still unfinished. From watching people I love carry more than they ever

Author Opening Note. Most folks do not know this but the Ace of Spades was once printed larger than every other card because card makers had to prove they were official and paid up. One card carried the weight of the whole deck. Funny how that works. One moment. One choice. One truth standing tall while everything else waits its turn. Life does that too. It singles out a moment and says show me who you are right here. Now before you step into this reflection let me speak plai

Author’s Opening Note Let’s sit down and talk for a minute, yeah? Really sit. Not the half-listening, phone-in-hand kind of sitting. I need you present mind, heart, the quiet spot in your chest that don’t get talked to much. We got some things to chew on, some things you might not want to hear, and some things that might just make you laugh when the world’s been too heavy. I ain’t here pretending I got it all figured out. Nah, I been stumbling, watching, learning from momen

The Mirror Don’t Blink A Story About What Follows You When Nobody Else Does By Kāteb Shunnar Author’s Opening Note Let me say this now before we get too deep in it, before you get comfortable, before you lean back thinking this just another piece you can nod your head to and keep it moving. This one might sit a little different on you. Not because I am trying to scare you. Not because I am trying to preach at you like somebody auntie after two glasses of sweet red wine and a

Author’s Opening Note Let me go on and say this before we even step into this thing together. Some of yall not gonna like what you about to read. And that is alright. I did not write this to make you comfortable. I wrote this because something in my spirit would not let me sit quiet and sip sweet tea like everything out here moving right. It is not. And deep down you already know that. See, we real good at pointing fingers. Real good. Olympic level with it. We can find fault

Author’s Opening Note Here’s something most folks don’t know, and if they do, they don’t sit with it long enough to let it sting a little. Fish don’t leave the tank because the water gets dirty. They suffer in silence until somebody with sense decides to clean it. Now ain’t that something. A whole life floating in mess, not because the tank is broken, but because nobody stopped long enough to do the work. Now let me go on and say this before you get comfortable and start poin

Author’s Opening Note Here is a little fact most people do not know about dancing. When a person dances, the brain releases chemicals that can calm fear, lower pain, and increase feelings of connection with other human beings. Scientists got fancy names for them chemicals, but around New Orleans we just call it “catching that beat.” "Ya heard me" When the rhythm hits your bones and your shoulders start rolling before your mind even agrees, that is not just movement. That is

Author’s Opening Note Here is something most folks do not realize about dreaming. Your mind can build a whole world while your body is laid out flat in a bed somewhere minding its business. In a dream you can walk miles, talk to people you never met, smell things that do not exist, and wake up wondering if your spirit went on a small trip while your body stayed home. Now scientists will explain dreams with long words and diagrams. They will talk about the brain sorting memori

Author’s Opening Note Before we wander too far into this story, let me say something plain so nobody feels misled halfway through. Some stories behave themselves. They walk in quiet, sit proper, and wait politely for somebody to turn the page. They keep their voice respectful. Mind their manners. This story is not one of those. No, this one strolls in smelling like fried catfish grease and wood smoke. Got a little Delta dust on its boots. Somewhere in its chest a lonely h

Author’s Opening Note Here is something most people do not know about New Orleans Voodoo. For generations, many practitioners baptized their children in Catholic churches on Sunday morning and honored the Iwa in their homes that same evening without seeing a contradiction. They did not separate the sacred into neat little boxes. They understood that spirit is too wide for fences. That alone unsettles people who like their beliefs color coded and labeled for convenience. New O

Author’s Opening Note Here is something most people do not realize about their own body. Your blood is salty. Not poetic salty. Not metaphorical salty. Chemically salty. The sodium moving through your veins is what allows your nerves to fire, your muscles to tighten, your heart to keep rhythm instead of stuttering off beat like a trumpet player who forgot the tune. Even your tears carry salt. Even the sweat that rolls down your neck in Louisiana heat leaves that faint white t

Authors Opening Words

Author’s Opening Note Here is an unknown fact they do not put on postcards or whisper during carriage rides. New Orleans does not just remember its past. It keeps it moving. Memory here does not sit still. It drifts. It hums. It taps you on the shoulder while you are mid bite of a beignet and asks if you are paying attention. This city does not bury lessons. It circulates them. I learned that early. Not from a book. From watching people take things without asking where they c

Author’s Opening Note Here is something they do not print on postcards or tuck between pictures of powdered sugar and brass bands. New Orleans has more above ground cemeteries than almost anywhere else in this country not because we are fascinated with death but because the land refuses to cooperate with secrecy. The water table sits too close to the surface. You try to bury something deep and it floats back up like it has something left to say. Coffins rise. Secrets resurfac

Author’s Opening Note Here is something they do not teach you in school or put on postcards with smiling pelicans and brass bands frozen in mid note. Trees near water grow slower rings. They do not rush. They learn patience from standing where floods come and go. Cypress trees down here know how to wait. They keep their knees above the water like they learned a lesson the hard way long before we showed up with our opinions and our plans. Nature does not hurry when it knows st

Author’s Opening Note. I need to say this before anything else because pretending otherwise would be dishonest, and I have learned that honesty without care is just arrogance wearing church clothes. This reflection cost me something. It wasn’t written in one sitting. It wasn’t written clean. It was written between pauses, deep breaths, and moments where I had to step away and remind myself why I even bother putting words on paper in the first place. Writing like this doesn’t

Author’s Opening Note. Here is an unknown fact they do not put on postcards or tourism brochures. New Orleans has more cemeteries above ground than almost anywhere else in the country not because we are obsessed with death but because the water table is too close to the surface. If you try to bury anything too deep it comes back up. Coffins float. Secrets rise. The truth refuses to stay hidden. That alone preached to me before I ever heard a sermon that stuck. You cannot bur

Author’s Opening Note New Orleans taught me something early that I did not understand until much later. Peace is not the absence of noise. If that were true, this city would never rest. Peace is learning how to breathe while the band keeps playing and the street keeps moving and the world keeps asking you questions you do not have answers for yet. I grew up watching people laugh with tears still sitting in their eyes. I watched neighbors argue loud enough to wake the dead and

The Brick Was Never a Weapon A New Orleans Dream About What We Refuse to Drop. By Kāteb Shunnar Part One I was standing somewhere without a name. One of those dream places that feels familiar but does not belong to any address you have ever lived. The air was still. Not peaceful. Just waiting. In my hand was a brick. Solid. Heavy. The kind that fits too comfortably in the palm. The kind people throw when anger dresses itself up as righteousness and swears it knows what it is

Author's Opening Note Unknown fact before we even start New Orleans is one of the few cities in the world where anger and joy learned how to live in the same house and argue in the kitchen without breaking the table. We were raised on second lines and funerals that sound like celebrations. We cry loud and laugh louder. We hug hard and we curse under our breath while doing it. Down here we do not deny emotion. We season it. And sometimes we oversalt it. I did not write this be