She is standing outside the Irish church in her wedding dress. Her hair is brown, and wavy, and reaches to the bottom of her shoulder blades. She waits patiently, alone, outside the church, but he never appears.

He is lying on his side, his cropped brown hair no insulation from the cold ground. The terrorists left him there, lying in his own blood, shot full of holes, the morning of his wedding. He is still in the brown pants and short sleeved shirt of the day before. He would have been cold, except that he is completely numb now. He isn't sure how long he has been lying on the ground, but it seemed like a long time.

She drives up to the abandoned lot, occasional strands of tall brown grass popping up here and there through the pavement, empty fields beyond. She sees a body lying on the ground ahead; the head looks up, and then the person on the ground slowly starts to rise, although the blood isn't visible, it is obvious that something is very wrong. He staggers towards the car, and as she jumps out, he collapses back to the ground, dead.

Very slowly, she reaches back into the car and pulls out a smallish grey object, which she clutches between both hands. She holds the object out in front of her, away from her head, and there is a sudden flash of light, followed by the sound of a Polaroid camera spitting out a picture. She slowly removes the picture from the camera, and then pulls out an envelope containing other instant pictures--the rehearsal and dinner the night before, he friends helping her dress this morning.

The picture develops, and the image is not of the young man lying on the ground, but of her, the car in the background, her hair perfect, a forced grin on her face. She walks back to the car with the camera and the pictures....

February 2002