Journos

I hold the camera in my hand, but I do not see. Aerosolized blood fills the air. Another explosion. It’s dusty. Where once a man bent over another, pumping life through his strained veins, there is just the vapor remains. I feel nothing in particular. Besides the intense urge to leave and escape and see my wife. Her name is Rachel. Just in case.

The dust begins to settle back down. I have a particulate mask. I’m still coughing. The people I was photographing are gone. There is literally nothing that remains of them. And while I was a few meters away, I lived. Me. It is time to run. 

I throw my camera over my shoulder. I take my first steps away from the memory of the wounded man, the disappearing medic, that explosive encounter that no one asked for and will never be reported, never documented. It is a small detail in an international atrocity. This provides narrative flavor. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The camera bounces against my lower back as I run down the road. More explosions now. Gunshots ring down the concrete canyon. I run. I run and think how many more times does this happen? A wave of weakness hits me. My legs turn to melting rubber, feet slapping the pavement. I am scared to turn around or feel again or look at myself. I run.

Through the streets, past steel wreckage and brick wreckage and human wreckage, beyond the fountain I am told children played at, somewhere down an alleyway that smells of sulfur and burning meat, past the theater that will now forever be a reminder of invasion and sacrifice but repurposed to inspire resilience and grit, I stumble into the hospital. My partner, a writer named Amina, is interviewing a patient waiting for treatment. Amina swivels in the waiting room chair. Her gaze meets me at the threshold. Eyes wide, eyebrows furrow, mouth open. I reach behind my back for my camera. I take a picture of her. 

“What happened?” Amina asked.

“Just the usual,” I said.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” I didn’t know.