Shutter by Ramona Emerson
For Grandma, Minnie S. Emerson
SHUTTER
CHAPTER ONE
Nikon D50 18-55mmDX
SOULS DON’T SCATTER like the rest of the body. They latch on for as long as they can, their legs pulled to the sky, fingertips white in desperation. Souls are grasping for us, for the ones they left behind, and for the truth only they can see. They are the best witnesses to their last breaths.
I stand in that bitter, cold wind with that ghost and take its picture.
Tonight, nothing was left. After two hours of metal on bone and flesh on asphalt, there were only yellow plastic forensic markers lined up like soldiers on the darkened freeway, all seventy-five of them marking the resting place of this soul, who was now merged with the blacktop, the blood and tissue part of its earth and chemicals. I watched the lead investigator lay another marker in the distance. Seventy-six.
Static crackled through the radio.
“We have OMI en route.” Office of the Medical Investigator. “DB I-40 westbound at Louisiana walkover. A body on the highway. Respond. Photo One? Are you there?”
“Photo One. I’m here.”
I knew then that I would be out here for hours. I clawed into my last pack of nicotine gum, pulling two pieces from the foil, and jerked myself into my paper suit and latex skin. Neither did anything to cut the cold. I ducked beneath the tape. We were always the first on the scene, the photographers. Next month would be sixty-six months for me. Five and a half years of taking pictures of dead people.
This person had been scattered—muscles and flesh torn by the push and pull of steel, by hot rubber and propulsion, speed and physics. The markers stretched out farther than I could see, a serpent of reflective yellow slithering into sky and tar. Too many people were on scene, mostly cops surveying the carnage, telling stories in huddles, pulled together by whispers.
I walked to marker one. Surrounded by the night sky, I took the first overall photo. I perched above; the wide angle lens was just wide enough. A galaxy of shimmering light set off every marker, every piece of flesh bound in yellow haze. The first ten pieces were small and unrecognizable, splinters of bone and chunks of tissue. By marker twenty-one, the pieces were bigger. A waxy, oily section of skin lay before me, the photo catching every detail of newly shaven legs, of the nick she gave herself probably that morning, of a faded tattoo saying “Forever.” I could tell it was a leg by the ghostly white bone that protruded from the flesh. A femur. Twenty-two was a piece of ankle; twentythree was a left foot with two toes missing—a snake and tree tattoo twisting out of the hole they left. When I found the toes about a foot away, they were still attached to each other by a thin rope of dry skin. Twenty-four.
The other leg was complete, torn low in the thigh. The kneecap faced north, scuffed to the bone, but the rest of the leg twisted south. The bones in the legs were cleanly snapped, the exposed flesh like outstretched hands. Every single bone in the right foot looked like it was broken. The pinky toe was missing. Marker thirty.
The hip bones were still intact, held together by the seams of the pants. About six inches of left leg remained, with no bone visible. My camera focused in on the partial tire track above the break. A breeze moved through and pushed the heavy iron scent of blood into my nose, a hint of decay catching in my throat.
The iliac crest overhung the torn flesh right above ripped, blood-soaked pants. Glittery sequins shimmered when I used my primary flash, shredded backbone pulling white into the camera frame. I used my slave flash and hot shoe attachment and tried the image again. On the rear viewfinder, I saw a twenty-dollar bill sticking out of the pocket. I hadn’t noticed it on my first glance. Image count: 175.
I moved along the side of the road, approaching the shoulder in a grid, carefully measuring the length of each piece of debris and the distance between various fragments of the body. The liver, intestines, kidneys, and uterus had not fared well: the tissue flattened by tires and caked with debris. I found her heart at number thirty-four, in the grass away from the asphalt, as if an invisible angel had laid it in place. I had never seen a heart like this, so pristine I almost waited for it to beat. It was like a sacred heart of Jesus postcard.
By the time I got to number fortyseven, I had photographed half of her body, including most of her internal organs. But fortyseven was her torso. It measured about fifteen inches, according to my scale. The woman was petite. She had lots of detailed and beautiful tattoos, the stories behind them now silenced, the ink unchained. The skid marks, ten and a half feet long, lined up with her rib cage, jagged back roads that cut through the landscape of her remains.
Around the edges of a frayed six inches of bicep, a tattered heather-gray T-shirt was rolled into a tight cylinder, cinching the skin. Two shimmering strips of nylon still rested lightly along her shoulder blade, the remnants of her bra. The rest of it was next to the torso, balled up and streaked with black tar. The scream of the charging flash orbited the night air. Image number 231.
A mist of condensation hung in the night sky. Even out in the cold, my hat and scarf were soaked with sweat. I peeled them away. I lifted my eyes to see how much was left. As I continued to shoot, I could hear the conversation between an investigator and a truck driver, the only driver who had bothered to stop.
“I didn’t see anything out there. Just the thud. Just the thud like I’ve been telling you.”