Down in the swamp country of Louisiana where the Spanish
Moss hangs like fine green hair from leafless trees, the frogs sing an eerie throaty
garrumping song, and the ‘gators and snakes slither away the night hours in the dark
and murky waters. It is here that there travels a woman at night, moving back and forth
along the stagnant shores and twisted trunks of trees, making strange noises that sound
half human, and anyone who has seen her says that her eyes shine like someone lit a
bonfire in the middle of them. Across the length of her back she always carries a
shapeless sack that is sometimes full and sometimes empty, and she is able to disappear at
the turn of a head. The people gave her a name so that she had a human quality in contrast
to her superhuman magic everyone said she possessed.
Annie was blamed for everything that went wrong along the
bayou; from missing washing on the line, to disappearing chickens, even when the catfish
stop biting Annie’s name was mentioned. No one knew where she came from, who she was,
where she lived or how long she has made the swamp her home, but they did know they
didn’t want to meet up with her on a moonless night.
COMMENTARY:
Annie courageously revel’s herself in a very special
way during a difficult time of the "coughing sickness" people are experiencing
along the bayou, finally putting an end to the mystery of who she is, where she came from
and why she lives alone in the bayou.
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