I leave them behind, staring straight ahead despite their pleas. The starry night beckons me. It promises to set me free, so I leave. Cries of anguish echo in the nether realms, part past part hell, where the darkness instills itself.
Nighttime brings terrible dreams, but daylight is where true nightmares come from. My boots disturb the grey cement kicking up clouds of dust. Smoke obscures the empty spaces where ****** faces once laid. Scarred flesh painted red with life’s fluid. Blood oozes and drips down the now cooling skin, then flows forming a small red river with tiny tributaries. All this is captured in a greyscale distortion.
I missed the moments of violent percussions. The sounds of man-made thunder crashing and smashing everything in sight. I was only here for the aftermath. Still, that is enough. Dark blue body bags hold the terror of two twins decimated. Gaping wounds appear as if something had been chewing itself free from their stomachs. Normal skin rolls into mangled and exposed muscle then becomes bone. What a sick alchemy of flesh.
Their faces follow the same empty stare. They almost look alive. Eyes open in accusation, pointing in a parallel direction. I can feel the full force of their claims as they silently scream “Why.”
I cry, but my tears come just upon the edge of numbness. Anger, and sorrow so extreme that my mind cannot handle it. I disappear, pretending that these are merely photos. I immerse myself in the delusion that this is a thing of the past. I am not here. They are not there. With a digital click, the camera becomes my emotional filter.
I stumble, a step away from losing what is left of my sanity, then cross the threshold in reverse, till I am outside. A small woman cradles something in her arms. It is a charcoal baby doll. Tears streaming the woman screams, holding that incinerated thing, but it’s just a doll. Black flakes fall, baby doll’s clothing turns to dust. I cough it in and out choking on the musk. I am grateful that it is just a broken doll.
I feel fear bringing me to edge of insanity. Her screaming seems strange. Her eyes look deranged. The doll’s legs have little calcium protrusions. Do burnt bones blacken? It’s just a doll. Scorched porcelain doesn’t look like skin, but it’s just a doll. Please let it be just a doll.
I pull myself from the situation. Detach what is left of my impartiality from my sanity. This is just a picture. This is just a job. Auto pilot takes over as I keep clicking photos, leaving any sense of self in the past.
