As a middle-aged man returns his season ticket to his wallet a small photograph falls out and flutters to the floor unnoticed. It's a slightly fuzzy photo of a woman with a sixties haircut and a broad smile, and for an hour or so it lies by the ticket gate among some other bits of litter until a rubbish collector passes by, picks it up with her tongs and flips it into a rubbish bag.
The picture's original owner notices that it's gone on his way home from work. It's gone, he thinks. The last picture. That last picture, taken just before she left to walk home to her parents' house.
Okay, there are pictures of her which were taken later by the police, but those aren't the sort of pictures which I'd want to remember her by.
He closes his eyes as flashes of pain and horror lash out across the decades, still raw and bleeding even after this long - the laughing kiss goodbye, the knock on the door and the pale, nervous policewoman, the silent, sobbing phone calls, the detectives and statements and reporters, the grey, shellshocked faces at the funeral. All these images resolve again and again into the same thing - a cold, bloodied, broken body lying on a mortuary table. As he turns away the vision finally fades into the background - for the time being.
Posted by mpk at September 15, 2004 11:08 AM | TrackBackvery powerful piece of work. its frightening to put oneself in the shoes of such a man, and it breaks my heart to know that his picture is now gone. it reflects an aspect of my own life right now...so is partciluarly powerful to me today. terrible, but powerful nonetheless.
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