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The pixels that form the whole |
Mental scrapbook of recent images. Not the big pictures, the focus of the shots, but the little details. These are what stick in my mind. Singular blue and yellow sneaker, almost out of frame with bloodied yellow shoelaces still tied. Well-loved doll with worn and tattered blue dress and once sunny hair, lying beneath a crumpled wall. These are what stick in my mind. Wrinkled and dirty hair ribbon tied around a messy braid of the little girl walking down a street alone. In repose, a mother cuddling two children in a ditch half full of water, might be only sleeping. These are what stick in my mind. Arthritic fingers hold the gun she is learning to fire. The great-grandmother will defend her own. As long as she can. Trying to be the man, ten-year-old learning to kill. He wants to defend his great-grandmother-- only mom he's ever known. These are what stick in my mind. Dead four-year-old shot in the stomach by advancing soldiers with orders to kill everyone. Later report: a visiting cousin caught on the wrong side of the border. The soldiers killed one of their own. These are what stick in my mind. Images from long ago form a mental scrapbook. They could be interchanged. Same images, different war. Again and again and again. Happens on both sides of that invisible line for these bits and pieces of collateral damage are nothing and everything. And this, this is what tears at my mind. |