Anna
Authors Note: This spring break my family and I went to Washington DC.  We went to many museums and saw many amazing things, but one thing stood out to me the most.  It was a picture.  The picture was in an exhibit of Pulitzer prize winning photos.  There were photos of men without legs and being lit on fire, too small babies that didn’t have a chance and crying children over dead or dying parents.  The photos were mostly in black and white, the grainy frames marking old age, with descriptions of them and their photographers in a small typewriter print.  The photo I noticed was sharper than the others, its colors standing out against the darker hues.  The picture displayed a man, his face bowed to a small child laying limply in his arms.  The child wore nothing, but socks and an ash stained cloth diaper.  Her blonde wispy hair matted with blood gelling it to her small head.  Behind them a red brick building burned.  The man was a firefighter the girl just turning two that day, the same day she died from smoke inhalation.  This photo spoke to me because it shows the innocence of childhood mixed with the cruelties of growing up.  How such a happy time could change so quickly into a despairing tragedy.  I wanted to write about the little girl in the photo, who didn’t have a chance to write for herself.  I wanted to write about her parents, about the man, the expression on his face.  So I did.   
   
    The little girl’s blonde hair floats in a frizzy circle around her porcelain white face.  Her blue and red checked dress is folded neatly on the flowered bedspread, her baby blue socked feet slipping silently on the wood floor.  Her mother’s soft lilting voice washes through the small apartment, cutting through the syrupy humid air.  The musical tones mixing with the scratchy static of a dying radio, the last bits of a Yankees game fading in and out.  A frosted white cake sits proudly atop the stove, swirly mountains of icing creating peaks, rainbow sprinkles scattered about creating little indents in the thick coating.  Her mothers tightly curled hair bounces as she rushes around the kitchen bits a ribbon hang loosely from her apron pockets evidence of last minute gift wrapping.  Her husband sits in a cracked red leather armchair, cigarette stains peppering its scratchy texture, he hums an old Sinatra song, holding a newspaper in one hand, twirling an unlit cigarette in the other, his deep hazel eyes flitting across the thin yellowed pages. The little girl’s thin frame looks skeletal in the shapeless dress, she smiles at her reflection exposing raw pink gums, the first teeth making their appearance. 
    “Come on Anna,” her mother croons. 
    “Okay mama,” she whispers.  She bounces around the room, a tightly coiled spring, impatient, her small hands grip the hem of her skirts, the fabric faded in places from age and wear.  Her mother had worn the very same dress when she was still a small girl, the blue and red hues still vibrant.                                                                     
    The colorful pastels whirl past her eyes, the door swinging open and closed, a small pile of presents compiling in the corner.  Her friends eyes gleam in their sugar crazed bliss, the paper party hats sitting lopsided on their small heads, the elastic bands snapped around their chins.  Their mothers and fathers flit in and out, a quick hello, a peck on the cheek and a hasty happy birthday before they are gone.  Her mother, her face set in a determined smile, her arms laden with carrot and celery sticks, glasses of lemonade balanced uneasily in the crook of her elbows rushes around the room. 
    “Take some,” she gestures to the children in a despairing voice, the lemonade sloshing back and forth.  Her father floats in and out of the room, a glass of something amber brown always in one hand, a little white book in the other, her mother glaring silently at him.  The little girl’s fingers wrap tightly around the hem of her skirts her knuckles turning a light eggshell white, she spots a small rabbit perched high on a shelf, the rabbit is missing an ear, his once pearly white fur stiff with loving, like the bristles of a paintbrush.  The black bead eyes look blankly ahead as if he is more important than the lesser beneath him, a thin green ribbon encircles his scrawny neck the last bits of pristine white fur poking out from underneath the only bit still untouched by the sticky fingers of adolescence.  Her ring finger catches the loop of the satin bow pulling him down from his hiding spot, nestled between a couple of books.  She wraps her thin arms around his chubby cotton torso pulling him to her chest.  The party swirls around her the screaming of children intermingle with sporadic bursts of music from the radio before it once again fizzles into nothing.  Chairs have been dragged into a small circle the children’s feet dangling over the edge grazing the carpet lightly.  Her mother runs from place to place catering to each child’s needs her eyes wearily looking over her shoulder.  A little girl pulls the crepe paper streamers from the ceiling dragging them behind her like feathers of a peacock.  A young boy with curly rust colored hair grabs one of the little rabbits legs dragging his little fluffy body along, the warmth dissolves her hands leaving her empty.  Her cheeks flush crimson her eyes becoming salty with tears, her mouth opening in a high pitched wail barely making an indent in the crescendo of noise around her. Her pale legs lay feebly in front of her, her hands balled up in fists of frustration crushing against her bloodshot eyes, tears dripping from the end of her chin dotting the red and blue collar of her dress.  She rubs her eyes repeatedly making the redness turn a more maroon shade. 
    In the next room, her mother jabs a finger at her father’s chest. 
    “Her big day,” her mother hisses.  “Don’t mess it up,” she pleads.  Her father sways around the corner spotting his girl, he stubs his cigarette on the windowsill leaving the butt smoldering.  He scoops her up in his arms rubbing her soft cheek against his sandpapery one the stubble stinging her skin.  He cradles her small body shielding her from the sounds of the party. 
    “It’s okay,” he whispers.  “You know I don’t like parties much either,” he laughs.  His khaki colored shirt presses against her pointed nose, smelling faintly of cumin and orange covered by the strong stench of tobacco.  A small smile plays across her lips, her eyes crinkling in the corners, a breeze blows through the open window tickling her nose.  Suddenly her father yells, less in pain more in fear, confusion.  His arms collapse dropping her to the carpet her skull reverberating dizzily.  Her vision blurs the screams of joy suddenly become more urgent, a party hat hits her softly, the paper lit ablaze the patterns of monkeys singeing tangerine then settling a sinister black. The little children scream, one child running past the hem of his shirt searing bright, tears streaming down his pudgy face.  The carpet burns hot under her soft skin, the streamers dangling limply from the ceiling bits of ash twirling from their ends.  Her joints feel sleepy, her mind clouds, the heavy grey smoke filling her head and lungs.  Her throat feels scratchy and burnt as if her insides were on fire.  She sees her mother's face, panicked and fearful she spins in a circle yelling before her eyes lay on the little girl.  The bookshelf teeters the wood splintering and cracking before with one last decided wail crashing over.  Shooting pain spreads through her body, her lungs seeming to collapse, her efforts to stay above the darkness that now clouds her becoming harder.  She hears her name faintly, her mother's voice, frantic, she hears her father shouting, screaming, Her name being called repeatedly, Anna, Anna, then silence.  No don’t go, mama, she thinks, please don’t leave me, please don’t go.  Her body convulses a shattered tattered scream gripping the inside of her hacking its way out.  A single burning tear carves a clean path through the soot caking her skin, her body curls into a tight ball before her eyes become too heavy and everything goes black.

     The cardinal hue of his uniform has faded into a more placid tan.  His hands shake as he digs through the discarded items; burnt and torn.   He hears the fear that has been left here, the screams, tangible.  He picks up a splintered shelf of a long ago bookshelf, a little girl's body lies beneath the cherry wood.  He remembers the mother that must be hers pleading with him to find her baby.  He remembers the man crying tears of guilt and self-loathing.  He gathers her frame into his arms feeling for a heartbeat, a pulse, but finding none.  Her wispy blonde hair is singed at the ends brittle strands  falling lightly to the floor.  Her hands are burnt black raw pink flesh and slick white bone poking out.  He rushes her outside where the fearful wait.  Some sit in groups mugs clenched in their hands talking in hushed raspy voices.  Some sit alone letting their howling screams ring lonely through the air.  A man stands under the shade of an oak tree his hands shaking feverishly as he tries to light a cigarette the flickering orange of his lighter casting shadows across his drawn face.  A woman starts to scream her eyes pooling, a policeman pushes her back sorry tracing his lips.  Two men with red crosses emblazoned on their chests rush up to him their gelled hair stiff and rigid, he lays her small form on a too large stretcher watching them apprehensively.  They take her pulse, feel her chest, and too soon shake their heads.  A white sheet is produced and the body is whisked away.