Photographic Punchlines

I’ve moved slowly, and nowhere but inside my apartment, for an entire day. It is late in the afternoon, and I am at my desk meditatively typing away, answering emails and fixing small bugs and watching the cats lounge in the long sun angling through the open windows. I’m adrift in casual relaxation as the summer blows its breezes around. The phone goes off. It is my landlord. “Hey, move your car the contractor can’t get into the trailer he just put in the driveway.” I expect there to be three or four cars in the driveway, and that I’m blocking folks in.

 

The next day, also exceptional in its perfect summerness, I am ambling through a park – never further from a hurry. A burbling finger of the Waloomsac river fills the air with that unintrusive aural incense, as do the clouds of rustling oaks all around. Walking the path from one end of the park to the other, my blissful disregard is slowly overwhelmed by concern. Growing louder and louder are the shrill cries of children, hundreds of them. They sound terrified, as if a gunman has stormed their school. The trees obscure any hint of the horror. I’m walking closer, quickening my pace, the screams swelling in volume, and know that regardless of the situation I will be utterly unprepared for what I see.

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