It’ll Never Be the Same

It’ll Never Be the Same

New Orleans will surely never be the same, no matter how hard they try.

How will they re-create the dark, dirty, crumbling hideaways where the voodoo queens dispense their spells and potions and charms and curses? Their unpainted shelves on concrete walls holding glass apothecary bottles with handwritten labels all lined up, alphabetized just like in a pharmacy. Powders of Black Cat Bone Lucky 13, Break Up Love, Dragon’s Blood, Fast Luck, and Love Everlasting.

Places where you go in private and pour out your worries and fears and desires to the dark priestess, who listens and nods and prescribes, and never ever judges. She knows that life is not all sweetness and light and clean and sanitized. Sometimes life is sour and dark and dirty and smelly and has to be approached from the nether side. So she prepares a personal package for you, in an unmarked envelope, measuring out from her jars—a pinch of Evil Weed, a smidge of Troubled Times, a toss of Unlucky in Love, with instructions to use it wisely and sparingly and secretly.

Yes, New Orleans will never be the same.