They're all such escapees from a 60's/70's caper movie. You expect to see George Segal wander by.

Photo #5

It was dark, as were all the others on the block, door agape and windows staring, glassless. Charles stayed close as they wandered through the first floor, knowing this was dreadfully difficult, but determined to make the visit possible for her. Her foot slipped, leaving a streak in the soot and a spark of color. She bent and picked it up: a photo as they had been then, before the plague. Human, her mother, her father, her brother, warm and living.

Even fire hadn't completely washed away the old scent of blood and fear, but she was finished here. These ghosts wouldn't haunt her any more.

Man, these are fan-fucking-tastic today. Awesome drabble, Tep. I'm still trying to decide which photo to do first, and madly trying to keep up with comments in LJ, and I can't.

Off to find a quiet place where the baby can't find me (oh, stop, just for a minute -- sheesh) and think.

Photo #7

He looked wonderfully well, and Roger wanted nothing more than to hold him close. But he contented himself with sitting next to him as they talked, and was overjoyed that Charles didn’t move away from his touch—in fact he seemed to draw a little strength and courage from it. There was none of the pallor there had been before, obviously they were seeing that he got outside occasionally. They talked of inconsequentialities, Charles making less of an obvious effort as the afternoon wore on. Roger's heart turned over in his chest. If only the attendant would look away, he might risk stealing a kiss.

I don't know who "Charles" is, but he seems to belong in my drabbles today.

[link]

t the writing next to Photo 1 is a bit of verse. I ran it through an online Polish translator. I didn't get a full translation, but I got enough. Thank god no one asks why I cry at my computer

Beloved Stasi, in token of remembrance

In later years, when people asked where she was, it was sufficient to say, "She died during . . ." People nodded and asked no more. They had names of their own, who had been lost during.

They'd been happy, those days in Venice. War was ended, there would be no more war. The news from reparations-battered Germany would come to nothing. They knew it was lies, but happy days in Venice were only possible on a sea of lies.

Beloved Stasi, whose memory lived among tombs and photographs, never lost as long as someone knew her name.

Photo 4

She never believed me when I told her she was beautiful.

“Beauty is for girls. And those great paintings you love so much.” A pretty face didn’t put food on the table, or wash the clothes. Beauty was a luxury, and the only luxury she wanted was more time.

I couldn’t convince her that strength and patience and sacrifice had made her face more captivating as the years went by. That love had written itself into her features, until the only thing I saw when I stepped behind the camera was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Amy, that was wonderful.

With so many pictures to choose from and so many good drabbles already posted, it's going to be hard to come up with anything more on my part. I need to go sit and devise a new torture.

Torture has been achieved.

Photo #6.

The Archaeologist

I wasn’t in long pants, yet. Those were reserved for Bob. He’d started wearing them two summers earlier. A year later, he went off to Oxford.

“I’m going to become the world’s greatest archaeologist,” he boasted.

I believed him. We’d spent summers digging up abandoned compost heaps in the backyard, getting grass stains on our knickers. Mother would complain about the cost of keeping us in worsted.

Yesterday, we received a telegram from the War Office along with a fancy medal in a box. Three months in the army and his convoy was blown up in the evacuation of Gaza.

You people are killing me with these. Sail, here's a spooky bit of synchronicity for you - I'd looked at that one and thought, hmmmm, Indiana Jones...? Young Indy?

I just finished reading "The Egyptologist" by Arthur Philips. It inspired me.