Excerpt
He looked down and saw only his shadow stretching across the asphalt to her body.
He closed his eyes and images of the night sky and the cold grey of the street began pin-wheeling in his mind, again and again, his stomach clenching in anticipation as the street moved closer with each turn.
Then it stopped and he was standing over her body again. He turned his head and saw her faint, ghostly outline standing next to him, the moonlight shining through the remnants of her life illuminating only her death.
What was left stood silently waiting, her sad eyes staring at him, into him, past him into the night. He always wondered what it was they could see that he couldn’t. Was it a shining white light or a red glow like in the movies that drew her gaze through him or was it a vast nothing that waited to swallow her spirit erasing her from both life and death.
How many times had he asked them and always they remained silent leaving him to take whatever came after on faith. A faith he had tossed aside years ago and had no desire to renew. He looked down at the camera in his hands and at the body at his feet. This was the only faith he knew to be true.
Death.
People died.
And when they died it was his job to photograph their death. He had become good at it.
Very good.
He would never stand alongside the likes of Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz but then they photographed the things that people wanted to see. Or admit they wanted to see. How many times had he seen horror and disgust on the faces of jurors as they viewed his works and how many times had he seen those same people reluctant to pass the photograph on. No, he would never be an Adams but people saw his work and their lives were changed just as much. And those other people, the ones who photographed the living and captured the mysteries of life would eventually pose before his lens.
He closed his eyes again and waited.