A Beautiful Tragedy
(Reading Time: 03:49) At this point in his life, he had chosen to capture only the beautiful moments in someone's life, but standing by the polluted stream, he could think of only one thing. This is an ugly, ugly moment. Why am I here? This is too familiar. Why?It was a moment of absolute surrealism. He took it calmly and scientifically, analyzing what he saw, seeing the way the shadows fell across the prone body, the horrified grimace on the red lips, as if death was not what she had expected. Above all, he was a photographer, and he studied the art of beauty, even in the grotesque.
The face was unfamiliar, but the black cap and gown identified the body as one of that afternoon's recent graduates. The face was undeniably female, with delicate bones and a mass of long blonde hair. She was half in, half out of the stream, her head tossed back, as if in some dramatic gesture. He thought that if not for the blood covering half of her face, she would have been considered quite pretty.
There is a purpose to me being here. Why did I choose to walk down this way? Away from the festivities at the park?
He believed in Fate, and he believed that Fate had brought him to the brown, stagnant stream for some reason. His camera was still hung around his neck, a third arm, but for once he did not reach for it. The sun was beginning to set, its angry orange fingers reaching desperately for what remained of the sky. The moon pushed calmly on.
He knew no one would follow him here. The smell was foul and the scenery even worse. Furthermore, it was a good half mile out of town. He reached a hand up to scratch the back of his neck as he looked at the body, splayed out in the most undignified manner possible. It was muddy and he inspected the ground for tracks. Only one set of tracks, apart from his own, were apparent on the ground. He puzzled over this for awhile; if she had been murdered, there would surely be two sets of tracks: hers and her killer's. He bent closer to the earth, noticing the footprints were not deeply set into the mud. There had been no killer then; if he or she had carried the girl in, his or her feet would have sunk deeper into the mud. He thoughtfully sat back on his rock and snapped a picture of the footprints.
A suicide then? On the night of graduation? What a horrifying time to commit such an act. It would surely destroy her family. A young woman, on the pinnacle of life, dead. By her own hand.
He sat down on a rock, still in a haze. He was surprised at how coldly he was reacting to this scene. If he had sense-if he had emotions, perhaps-he would be running helter-skelter to the police. He could see himself leaning breathless against the table at the police station, blurting out his story...and then there would be people here. Cameras, bright lights, a buzz of horror and fascination, fast talking, tears. This quiet acknowledgment of death was sweeter. He felt that this was what she would have wanted. He couldn't quite say why, but he knew. He had seen too many things a photojournalist. Things that he wished he could push from his mind. He had learned to harden his heart and mind to the most unspeakable sights. Now he saw them only as a very distant observer. He had trained himself to see the world that way. He had been all over the globe, to the most impoverished regions of the earth. He had seen great cruelty and great need. He had seen too much, and he had grown weary of it all. Weary of feeling obligated to document the world's atrocities and bring them to the light. He wanted out. But he couldn't put his camera down. So he had moved here, to a tiny town in Massachusetts, and gotten a job with the local newspaper. They had been astonished that he, a world-famous photojournalist wanted to work for them. They had blessed whatever lucky star had sent him to them. So now he was here. Sometimes he feared that he no longer had a heart.
He methodically got up and searched for the weapon. It was too easy; a handgun lay half in the water by her side. He took a picture. He returned to his rock, thinking about what to do next. He didn't want to explain. He was a man of few words; he preferred to let his pictures do the talking for him.
The huge black camera was turned over in his hands, over, and over, and over again. The dying sun turned the desolate scene around him a rich golden. It hit the girl in such a manner that for an instant, she was a beautiful, tragic angel with a halo of golden light. He took a picture. He took many more pictures, of everything, capturing that scene. And when the golden light died away, he silently slipped back through the thicket, and to the local drugstore, where he developed his pictures.
The next morning, a huge outcry was raised over a missing Amanda Dayton, just recently graduated. Prom queen, popular, beautiful, president of the student body, headed to Yale. She was missing. Her parents had found a suicide note on her bed.
That afternoon, a package of photos was delivered to the sheriff's office. Inside was a note:
If tragedies could be beautiful, she was.
The pictures led them straight to the little stream, where they found the body of Amanda Dayton. No one ever knew who sent the photographs, though some suspected the photojournalist who had left town very recently.
The picture of Amanda that he had took in the fading sun became famous. It was accredited to "Anonymous."
A few years later, he was wandering about in an art gallery and he was stunned to see the picture of Amanda, blown up and hanging on the wall. He studied the title of the piece. It read:
If tragedies could be beautiful, she was.
Tragedy Short Stories Death Short Stories
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