The once jubilant streets filled with marching bands and parades, hordes of partygoers and vendors like all else, stood empty, evacuated as well as possible. The concoction of general debris collected in the gutters mixed with the slick swampy products of the overstrained sewage system. Tree limbs, mud paper and garbage had been slathered across the streets generously like jam on a fresh-baked biscuit.

Dust-colored streams of light cast upon the spoilt white linens, drapery hanging haphazardly like the solemn mood adorned the curtain rods across their arched windows. What did it matter, the frivolity and gaiety that had been interrupted, the sanctity of marriage vows defiled. Happiness? The prospects of a care-free life? the situation was all so distant and alien. Business as usual, there was no longer any sentimental value to the watermarked stainless steel appliances and other gifts heaped on the worthless remains of a table, no remaining sliver of rotting cake, already passed over by the rats would be frozen, partaken on a distant anniversary in some romantic venue worlds from this scene of chaos and destruction.

Prying the doors off their frames, the party clad in FEMA-certified protection suits turned their backs on the banquet hall turning their gaze instead to the seemingly untouched figure of the adjoining church.