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After pulling the front door closed, I rush down the sidewalk of our enclosed patio, careful not to stumble over the potted Abracadabra rose Amy gave us. I love a flower that changes color every season, and it needs water badly, but who am I to have time to be a gardener, especially when I can get the picture of the year? As I pass the security camera focused on the front door, I file a mental note to have Denny check it later. I sprint past the gate and down the walkway, pass the community mailboxes, and turn left toward the playground.
My heart is pounding; I’m thankful I only have minor cramping, and I know the Motrin will be kicking in soon. My mind is racing. This could be “the photo.”
Are you keeping up with me? I don’t know what shape you’re in health-wise, but step it up, as we must get to the scene before anyone else.
My last climbing-the-corporate-ladder-in-one-fell-swoop was when the governor’s son got shot. It was a sheer accident that I was in the convenience store at that exact time, buying a bottle of cabernet. I had mistakenly carried my camera bag into the store instead of my over-the-shoulder purse. Boy, what a smart mistake I made.
I was at the back of the store and headed to the checkout counter, wine in hand, but I had noticed one of my pant legs folded up on its hem, so I bent down to straighten it out with my other hand. In doing so, I didn’t immediately notice the trouble unfolding in front of me.
Two robbers were holding the governor’s son at gunpoint in the middle of the chip aisle. One was holding the kid’s arm while the other was facing him. From where I was standing, I had a full view of the three, as I was at the far-end kiosk of the same aisle but out of view of the creep holding the gun. Hovering near the row of Doritos, I slowly slipped the beat-up Nikon that Daddy had given me for my eighteenth birthday out of the bag, nonchalantly held it out six inches from my hip, and pressed the button once without looking through its viewfinder.
One click—a click loud enough that it caught the gunman’s peripheral attention as he pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the weapon went off, and the bullet hit the poor boy on the side of the head. Oh, blood went everywhere. At that second, I had no clue what kind of photo I got, but I remember being scared to death when the shooter looked in my direction.
As the robber holding the kid saw his partner shoot, he hollered for them to split before the cops arrived. By then, the bloody boy was on the floor, not moving, while the deep red puddle under his head rapidly expanded. I had sunk to the floor in shock, waiting for the assailant to whip around the corner and put a bullet in my brain. The last thing I was thinking about was what my photograph showed. Once I knew the thugs had fled, I ran to the unconscious boy’s side and held him as I sobbed, begging for someone to help.
Sure enough, when the nightmare was over, right on my camera was the tell-all photograph of the two robbers’ faces—in plain view with the gun firing, the exact second of the killing! Police were ecstatic that they could identify and later arrest the crooks so easily. My photo made front-page news, and syndicate bought it. I have at least a dozen printed copies of the various news sources and a list of the many websites that showed it online. Cable networks included it as their headline news of the day. Got a nice, nickel-framed copy of it at my office workstation. The governor called the news, talked to Carl, and wrote me a thoughtful and tender letter plus later sent a case of the wine I was trying to buy. Although his son had been holding on to life while he had been in my lap, he died three days later, never having regained consciousness.
Have you been through anything like that? It’s traumatic and unexplainable. The experience left me shaken and withdrawn when I realized that I may have caused the gun to go off by taking the photo, or that I could’ve been shot, by those drug-crazed hoodlums. I took a week off work and started going to counseling for post-traumatic stress. It’s strange seeing someone getting shot in the head and dying as I held him close. After several months of therapy, the hardest thing for me to do was to throw out my blood-stained pants, shirt, jacket, and shoes, as if keeping them would have brought the kid back to life.
But what happens happens.
My sessions also taught me about overcoming guilt and staying calm during a crisis by putting all feelings, good or bad, on the back burner until later. I learned that logic was my friend.
The gov’s son’s time was up, and mine was not.
And no, it didn’t change my thinking about an afterlife in Heaven or Hell like others do. Nor did it make me grasp onto God from an out-of-body incident. I moved on, thanks to the shrink I went to who said my healing was inside me, and I can accept and change how I perceive my experiences, positively or negatively. I cured myself. That’s when I realized I was in control, not anyone or any Superior Being. Me and only me.
Do I need to reiterate? Yes, I was and am in control. And you’re in control of yourself; don’t let anyone try to tell you differently. Do yourself a favor and ignore them if they pull that talk on you.
This time, I won’t let that wave of emotion latch onto me. I’ll be an observer, not a participant. I’m there to take videos and pics for a story, nothing more. No involvement, no reaction.
With my adrenaline soaring, I’m determined to overcome my nervous panic. I force myself to accept that the funny feeling in my stomach is only cramping, nothing else . . . including a growing baby.
I run past the playground and swing set, not stopping to look at or pick up those girls’ articles of clothing. Hmm. Did you notice them, and are you wondering what happened?
The plane or remains of its scattered parts are clearly in my vision, as though it’s taking up the full screen of a movie theater. One other person is running to the crash site. Several people stand frozen in awe in the access street watching the wreckage, doing nothing.
Dark clouds of smoke billow and surge upward to the evening sky from parts of the broken metal ship. I stop in my tracks. My camera focuses automatically, and I pan the area with the video finder, scanning back and forth, trying not to wobble and shake as I keep my finger on the “On” button.
The plane is separated into several sections: The back part of the fuselage sprawls on the dry ground a hundred feet directly in front of me; the front part, including the cockpit and both separated wings, is on fire at the far-left end of the field, less than thirty yards from the First Baptist Church. The broken tail, with its marred airline logo, rests to the right near an arterial street, standing like a monumental tombstone pointing to the sky, to an unknown god. Ironically, I notice the occasional orange and yellow poppies blowing casually in the wind around the carnage, as if not paying attention to the tragedy that surrounds them.
Help me here. Remind me to focus, pan out the camera, and concentrate on holding it still. Tell me to stay in control; tell me not to get involved, to stay restrained. Sagacity must rule.
I pass the grass area designated for dog-walking, not concerned if I step in any unintentionally or intentionally left excrement. I jump off the sidewalk curb and travel across the complex’s access road, making sure I don’t trip over the speed bump that needs a new coat of yellow paint.
On the outer apron of the street rests an abandoned bicycle on its side. It looks like one of those top-of-the-line models with all the special gears and gadgets as its chrome sparkles in the setting sun. A pair of men’s white athletic shoes with their laces tied, white socks, and black running shorts are tossed nearby. An all black shirt is splayed across one wheel’s spokes, while a black bike helmet with earbuds hanging from it is spotted in the nearby weeds. The owner must be at the crash site. Why did he leave without some of his clothes and shoes?
I wish you’d tell me repeatedly to focus, zoom in, and hold the camera still, Sarah. I must be at peace. Relax. I inhale and exhale through my nose as slowly as I can. I must be calm, so there’s no shakiness in the video.
Is your blood pressure rising like mine? Can you help relax me—tell me something, anything to ease this growing panic?
Now I am about twenty feet from the back half of the fuselage.
Stop, focus, zoom, pan left, and pan right. Slowly, slowly. No shake.
Bent metal pieces, parts of torn airline seats, tattered clothing, and human debris lie scattered at my feet. I’m afraid to move, to step forward or on something or someone’s body part.
As I observe the destruction in my viewfinder, the scene sears into my mind forever. Focus, focus, Sarah. Stay calm and collected. This time I open my mouth and take a breath. I know that’s a small breath. Try again. Breathe. Don’t get involved. Please, you help me concentrate; please help me be calm.
Panning the camera, I hear screams. Not the screams you hear on a breath-crushing roller coaster, but more the kind that knows death is approaching and inevitable. I could never imagine or explain this scene of such horrendousness. I want to put words to the splattered blood, the twisted metal, the acrid smell of burning flesh, and the unworldly screams, or to how cruelly the plane engulfs its victims, but I can’t mouth them. I know no words, do you? I want to plug my ears—the cries are horrific. My mouth feels full of cotton; my eyes are watery from smoke, and my legs want to buckle. I’m in a fight-or-flight situation; I must fight. I must stay in control.
Carefully, I step over a puddle of blood seeping from a hot pink sock and matching Nike tennis shoe tied onto a foot and ankle minus its body. Red blood is oozing onto the pretty sock from the foot inside the shoe as it remains unmovable on its side.
I’d tell you not to look, but you can’t miss seeing the death surrounding me. I want to simply do my job.
Focus on the mundane.
The shattered face plate of a man’s Fitbit with an all-black band blinks its racked-up digits in the nightmare, never to register another step.
A tall dandelion weed flutters with a part of someone’s head—oh, several strands of long gray hair with red chunks of scalp—dangling off the leaves. Stop, don’t look, move on, Sarah.
A cardboard cup sits upright, a stir stick still in place and the remains of cream-laced coffee still evident. A finger nearby with a fake lime green nail resides next to a partially weed-filled gopher hole. A pair of glasses, one lens cracked with blood splatters. A man’s brown leather wallet, folded and unopened, resting on the airline’s emergency insert card. And, by a partial leg, a smartphone facing down, its cover filled with sparkly rhinestones on a cyan-colored backing.
Stop looking, forget what you’re seeing. Let the camera do the work, not me.
You notice my heart pumping each beat through my veins. My stomach is queasy, is yours? The palms of my hands are clammy. It seems like hours instead of seconds have passed.
Fixated on my viewfinder, I barely notice a man rushing past me. He’s saying something about standing back; he has a small fire extinguisher, like those kept in the entry halls of our townhouse buildings. He’s telling me he wants to get to the passengers, to see if any are alive or injured.
I hear him, yet he sounds far away, in a long, dismal tunnel from a world parallel to ours.
Looking up, away from the viewfinder to the side of the field opposite the church, I see a solo fire truck entering its parking lot with its lights flashing and three firefighters hurrying to unload equipment. Near what’s left of the front half of the fuselage and wings, the crew has set up hoses and is shooting water into the blaze. It’s a good thing the vicious, fire-seeking Santa Ana winds aren’t raging through the Valley today.
As fast as the defining screams started, they instantly hush. No more yelling can be heard; all is silent except for the fires prodding and torturing man-made metal material at the crash scene.
I bravely take the next several steps and follow the man who ran past me. Don’t look down, Sarah—don’t look at those things on the ground, those items that breed everlasting nightmares. Look straight ahead at the plane.
Control yourself.
Try to take another breath.
Do you see this carnage? Unbelievable. Unfathomable.
The muscular man is positioning his head into the ripped-opened area of what remains of the back half of the fuselage. He’s putting out a small fire to the right of the opening with the bright red canister. Amazingly, this portion of the plane is not engulfed by flames—maybe because the fuel-stored wings tore off and are far enough away from what’s left here.
I stand five feet behind him.
Focus, pan.
Slow, steady.
Exhale calmly.
My camera zooms past the large man into the destroyed craft. I unemotionally scan past parts of bodies, human beings, trying not to glance at their faces and features, but it’s hard and impossible to avoid.
As the man sprays carbon dioxide and extinguishes the fire in the plane’s opening, a body is discovered. Next to it is another one; both are burned to the point that their sex is indeterminable. Yet across the aisle is a seemingly unscathed male in his mid-forties: bald with glasses, paunch hanging over his fastened seat belt, blue button-up-the-front shirt, and dark slacks. He sits as though he’s dozed off; I’m grateful there’s no look of panic or fear on his face. I blink and move the camera to the next victim. Guessing from the color of her hair, a woman in her sixties is flopped over, hugging a cushion or pillow. Thankfully, I can’t see her face. A thin woman with one leg twisted in an unnatural direction wears a face mask; her thick, black-rimmed glasses are askew on her nose. Her head is hanging limply on her chest; she’s dead. A man with a noticeable alchemy eye tattoo on his neck and gauges in both earlobes is in his seat, eyes closed while his head is tilted backward. Dead.
It looks like no one is alive. The tomb of death is displayed in front of my camera, in front of me. In front of you.
The video continues to pan; I’m on autopilot, watching a movie on a tiny screen that I hold in my hand instead of being here, in the flesh, directly in front of me. Maybe I’m feeling like you are—here to only see and hear, but not to participate or interact. I know I’m alive, but I’m deeply aware that those around me are not.
My arms tingle and go weak for a second, forcing me to drop my camera on its shoulder strap, thudding against my breastplate as if it refuses to view more tragedy and horror. I look down at the mechanical object barely moving on my chest, hoping it’s not as broken as my heart feels.
The automatic videotaping continues, homed in on the floor of the plane.
There—under the seat by the aisle on the right side—it shows a black briefcase that’s half-open with papers blowing and flapping around.
Leaving the camera at chest level but able to turn the front knob and view the screen, I zoom in further into the broken aircraft, under the seat, three rows back, and concentrate on the movement of the papers.
Look at something not human, Sarah. Something inactive, not alive. Avoid anything that was once alive. Stay in control. Try breathing through the nose again; you know it calms you down. Be levelheaded.
A pure white sock. A gold bracelet. An airline ticket. Inanimate objects only.
Torn seat cover. Empty pretzel bag. Harlequin romance novel with its pages flipping one way and then the opposite direction. Several keys on a Seattle Mariners’ keychain. An airline napkin with something scribbled on it. A capped gel pen.
Something arouses my interest.
Under a seat on the floor is an unopened candy bar jammed between the foot railings of the chair—a Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar—the kind Denny always buys for me. It’s one of my favorites.
When I zoom in for a closer look, I overshoot and see beyond the treat and between the row of seats.
Oh, a hand! An outstretched hand, fully open, its palm facing outward toward the opening of the fuselage. All five fingers intact, no burnt skin, no marring of the palm or wrist.
I pause on the scene, taking a still shot of the unmoving hand. Then I let the video capture the humanity of the hand hanging down, hoping at any second, it’ll grab the candy bar or give the okay sign with its first finger and thumb, and all will be well in the world.
Then it happens.
The hand moves!
Did you see that? Wow! I know you saw it; I’m not fantasizing.
The first finger wavers a little at the first joint, then motions as though it’s flagging down an Uber driver or wanting to call something to my attention. The connected fingers join in, pumping in and out slowly into the palm.
The hand is awake—the hand is alive!