I still have the camera I found that day. I’m still not sure how it survived to be where I recovered it. I remember it clearly - the dust-caked object lying in the gutter near St. Peter’s grabbed my attention though everything that day was caked in dust, and though it was only one of innumerable objects interspersed with the rubble. It was something to fixate on besides the events of the last eight hours though, so I bent to recover it, wiping the dust off the cracked digital screen. I thought it might have been forgotten by one of the reporters or the newspaper photographers, so I took it with me as I made my way home, away from the tower of sooty smoke.
I got back to the apartment, reflexively tuned the television to CBS, and rummaged about for a connecting cable. That found, I set about plugging the camera into my computer, not really expecting it to work. It did, and soon the entire contents of its memory dumped themselves onto my hard drive, all six pictures. In the other room, television newscasters repeated the news I knew only too well. Outside, sirens still shrieked.
The first picture from the camera showed an attractive couple in their late forties or early fifties standing in Times Square, with the big screens in the background. The man had on a striped shirt and a Marine Corps insignia baseball cap, while the woman wore jeans and a zippered windbreaker. I knew immediately from their excited beaming that they were tourists. The file’s name was its time stamp: around lunch the day before I’d found it.
The second picture, from afternoon the same day, was taken in Central Park. Only the woman was in frame, and she was feeding a buzzing swarm of pigeons, a carefree laugh frozen on her face. If it weren’t for her graying hair, she would have looked ten years younger than in the first picture.
The third was a bottom-up view of the Chrysler Building, taken only a few paces from its front entrance. It was taken around dinner-time the same day as the last two.
The fourth picture was taken that morning just after eight-thirty. I hesitated, suspecting the contents, but I nevertheless clicked to view it.
It was a picture of the bay, taken from the top of a skyscraper. I knew which one it was immediately, but didn’t want to think about it. Lady Liberty stood proud in the distance, and I picked out Ellis Island’s squat bulk somewhat closer. There were a few boats out on the water, cutting light V’s into the water’s jade. It was truly a beautiful picture but I skipped over it quickly, hurrying to see the last two. Hoping what I suspected wasn’t true.
The fifth image was taken from the same vantage, looking back over Manhattan. It was truly a superb shot as well, but I likewise skipped over it, praying that the last picture would tell me that the tourists had moved on to another landmark. I closed my eyes as I opened the last image, hoping it was a picture of St. Peter’s. Of anything but what I guessed it to be.
The sixth image showed the man and the woman hugging against the railing on the World Trade Center’s observation deck. Their faces were turned to the camera, and in that instant they looked so happy. The time stamp read 8:46 AM.
As soon as I took my eyes off their faces I noticed then the slightly blurred, white, V-winged shape in the sky behind them: the unmistakable silhouette of a Boeing airliner. I shuddered, but could not look away from the tragic image - from their smiling faces, unaware as death bore down on them.
This story originally written for the Literary Maneuvers Challenge on writingforums.com.
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