There is calamity. The picture must have been taken at the exact moment tragedy struck. There, in the foreground, a pretty young lady stands beside a mailbox holding a letter in one hand, and the mailbox door with the other. She faces the photographer with a wide smile as she poses in an exaggerated gesture of placing the letter in the box. Her attention is focused on the camera and nothing else. Behind her, a busy street is met with chaos. To the right in the picture you see a delivery truck caught frozen in its attempt to avoid hitting a man who held a newspaper in front of his face while in mid stride, stepping blindly into the busy street. The picture was snapped, the delivery truck was held in time, swerving, inches before colliding with an on-coming mini-van. Both the drivers held expressions of contorted fear as they starred at each other. If it wasn’t for the seriousness of the outcome of this picture, those faces would have looked quite comical. The two vehicles will hit each other head on. The larger delivery truck will knock the mini-van into the air and send it towards a street light. Both drivers will need to be rushed to the hospital with injuries. Both will survive. The young woman in the picture will not. The street light is broken in two by the impact from the mini-van, it falls and lands across the mailbox and the woman who didn’t even try to move out of the way. It happened too fast.

A slight shaking in your right hand briefly betrays your efforts to keep still. Another photo is dropped in front of you. It lands on top of the first but only covers half of it. The half that still shows itself is the half with the smiling young woman holding the letter. No colliding vehicles; No impending doom. The second picture tells its story…

You see the inside of a church. There is a coffin closed at the front of the church and it sits where the priest stands to give his sermon. The picture was taken from somewhere near the back of the church on the right side of the room. The back of many heads are visible between the photographer and the coffin. All those heads are turned slightly to the left. There are many mourners. At the front of the church, just in front and to the left of the coffin, the priest is standing, slightly bent forward with his arm extended out and his hand on the shoulder of a man. In the priests other hand, he is holding a bible that is tucked between his ribs and arm. The priests face is vivid in an expression of sorrow as he looks to the face of the man. The man of whom the priest is trying to comfort is on his knees facing away from us with his both fist closed tightly and held in the air. His head is tilted back and he appears to be looking upwards…towards a stain glass image of Jesus on the cross over the priests podium…or maybe he is looking beyond that. His back is turned to us but it is obvious that he is caught between feelings of rage and grief and is unconsolable.

Absolutely still you sit. There is a heavy pounding inside of you. You feel it in your arms and legs and inside your head. Your eyes move from the coffin in the second picture to the smiling young woman in the first picture. A third picture is dropped. It lands on top of the smiling woman and the priest and the man. All that shows beneath it is the stain glass image of Jesus on the cross. The third picture tells this…

It is a photo of the profile of a man seated in a cafe. The man is holding a newspaper up in front of him about ten inches from his face. The man looks oblivious to his surroundings. He is sitting with his right leg folded over his left, and a coffee in a paper cup waits for him on the small round table to his right. He sits alone. The cafe is busied with people. A line of people at the counter disappears out of the photo and other people are visible sitting near similar little round tables while chatting with each other. The focus point of the photo is on the man with the newspaper. This is made obvious as an angry red circle was drawn around him by someone. The man is unaware that the picture was taken.

A wave of anger washes over you as you look at this man. Your left hand involuntarily clenches and unclenches. It tingles. You reassert your efforts to keep those hands still. You feel loathing towards the man in the picture. A fourth picture lands in front of you. As it lands, it scatters the other pictures. You see the smiling woman again in the first picture, the priests sorrowful face in the second, and the oblivious man in the third. The fourth picture tells…

The photo is horrible in its detail. It is in a dark room, maybe a cellar or an old basement. The man in the picture is the man who reads the newspaper and he is barely recognizable. He is tied at the wrists and hanging from a rope that is tied to something above him beyond the the edge of the picture. His head leans to the left and slightly back. It is held upright by his upward extended arms. His face is bloodied and broken. His eyes are swollen shut and are already blackened by untold blows to his face. He hangs shirtless and his torso is covered in red from the bleeding from his face. His ribs looked caved in on his right side and there are angry bruises all over him. He looks to have suffered through unimaginable torture. The place your eyes keep returning to his the mans mouth. It is jammed open. Although the blood makes it harder to figure out what has been stuffed into it, it becomes apparent that it is newspaper filling the mans mouth and a corner has unfolded, sticking out, making itself known.

You don’t feel sorry for the man. You stare at him and you feel hate. This man stole away from you the woman you loved more then anything… the woman you were going to marry. The woman who was mailing away the first invite to your wedding. It was addressed to her parents, you both thought it was the most perfect way to tell them… surprise them with the greatest of news. They had been asking for months when you two would tie the knot. This man and his damned newspapers took all of that joy and turned it into endless pain in seconds. Nothing any priest could say to you would ease that pain. Not a word or sign from God ever came to help either. Nothing was left in life anymore and it was this mans fault. Your soul was lost. You made him suffer. You hurt him over and over. When he passed out, you brought him to again so you could torture him more. He cried and begged and apologized endlessly. It didn’t matter. She was still dead and he killed her. You stare at the picture and rage and pain stab you with countless knives. He was made to suffer and you killed him back yet this pain still ravishes you. It is worse then before and grows stronger daily.

You are not alone in this room. The words that are spoken to you from the people who have been dropping the pictures sound far away and unimportant. Your hands start shaking and there is nothing you can do about it. There is a roaring sound in your ears and your throat closes tight. Your breaths come in rasps as stars begin to appear in your eyes. The woman you wanted to live life with and grow old with is gone, forever. You buried her… Your arm goes numb and there is a hot feeling inside your head. This man who took her from you is gone but the pain remains. It made no difference to kill him… The table in front of you seems to float away and the floor is suddenly laying against you. There is nothing anyone can do or say that will make you feel whole again… The room fades to black as feet scramble around you and faint shouting can be heard. She is gone from you and you no longer care… Your whole body is numb to you and the world fades away from your being. The pain stays…you hold onto that until the very end. There, just before the last part of your brain dies, her voice cries out to you aghast and horrified, revealing to you what a monstrous thing you allowed pain to make of you….”What have you done?!”