they're showing war footage on the tv and talking, reporting on the impact of reporting and all i can think of is this one image.

one recurring picture flashes to the forefront, here and then it's gone, leaving the negative in black and white burned in my eyes... fading, fading and gone, waiting for the next trigger.

it was last year. the sniper was a new thing. the pictures were just surfacing.

i glance at the newspaper and on the front, in full color, is a sheet and a bench and a woman inbetween.

a wrist and two ankles

the ankles, limp, suddenly uncrossed, connecting to two faded slip-on mules like my grandmother wears. the picture is not grainy or my mind's eye has filled in the horrified details but i see the skin is thin and old and frail, innocent and unknowing.

the wrist and the ankles span a puddle, red and ugly, hateful, spiteful, random and out of place.

she is someone's grandmother, this lump of sheet, this wrist, these two ankles.

she is the epitome of my nightmares.

~~~~~

...and i still hate writing downstairs.

ink :: graphite