Iota, Louisiana is somewhere out in the swamps between New Orleans and Houston. It is a speck, unknown, and by custom, creole, cajon, cajoling, bizarre, it is not generally known by outsiders. This is where Andrew went to escape February and high school. Back in Cleveland, February had pursued him from year to year, the death dirge of winter, long before spring became a real thing, impartially vindictive, objectively callous, cruel, careful, ruthless, death and death. He thought he would escape it in Louisiana. And high school pursued him. Without a college degree, without any jobs in his burnt out town, he felt stuck in the moment of the closest success he had ever known; honor roll grades and appreciative teachers, and girls that admired him even if they did not love him.
Iota was meant to be an escape. It wasn’t long before he realized that the bayou has all kinds of death he didn’t know and wouldn’t have recognized through his rust belt eyes. Death is just beneath the brackish surface, and more creatures lived a short life here. If his high school moments seemed futile, they were something next to the strange language and accents he could not access.
So he spent summer nights in his hammock and dreamed about Cleveland and February, and drank himself asleep.