Double Exposure by Michael Lister

gun, the right one, closed, his head tilted away from the weapon slightly, a horrific look of helplessness, hopelessness, and resignation at the inevitability of it all on his swollen face, the suspected Viet Cong collaborator has his picture taken just seconds before his life.
    There’s something so casual in the stance of the uniformed South Vietnamese chief, something so terrifying in the expression of the North Vietnamese officer in civilian clothes.
    We shouldn’t be looking at this. We can’t look away.
    F eeling marginally better, less in shock, momentarily forgetting about his fatigue and the freezing temperature and the men with guns who are at this moment hunting him. He finds photography, even remembered photography, powerful and profound and inspiriting.
    As if flipping casually, but quickly, through the pages of a photo album, he recalls other great, iconic pictures:
    Muhammad Ali, mouth open, arm bent, standing over Sonny Liston, after knocking him out in the first round of their rematch.
    Marilyn Monroe on a New York subway grille, white dress floating around her, one hand holding it down, the other behind her ear, mouth open in a seductive half-smile, painted toenails, high heels, arched feet, exposed legs. Sensual. Sexy. Seductive. Goodbye Norma Jean. Hello Venus rising.
    Martin Luther King, Jr., in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, waving to a sea of two-hundred thousand people, Washington Monument in the distance. Activism. Hope. History. Birthplace of a dream.
    “Fall of the Berlin Wall,” “Nelson Mandela’s Release from Prison,” 1948 portrait of Einstein, closeup of Louis Armstrong performing, first man on the Moon, press photo of a young Elvis demonstrating his patented pelvic twist, 1963 portrait of The Beatles following the release of
Please, Please Me,
the Wright Brothers’ first flight—all are pictures that make him happy, that remind him of the power of photographs, and why he takes them.
    E xhaustion.
    Fatigue.
    Stumble.
    Trip.
    Fall.
    Just as he’s about to reach the flats, he realizes he can move no further. He trips over an exposed hardwood root and falls. And doesn’t get up.
    Rolling into a thicket of grass, palmettos, brush, and snake berry plants, he gathers leaves around him, covers himself as best he can, and falls asleep.
    D reams.
    Evening.
    Fall.
    Teenage Remington following behind his father.
    —Hurry, Cole says. It’s almost dark. We’ve got to get home. Mom’s waiting.
    Remington is younger and faster than his dad, but mysteriously unable to keep up.
    —Come on, son. Don’t make me tell you again.
    —I’m trying.
    —You’re not.
    —I am. Something’s wrong. I can’t—
    —You have to or I’ll have to leave you.
    —Okay, Daddy.
    He hadn’t called Cole anything but Dad in over a decade. Where did Daddy come from? And why did his voice sound so small and weak?
    —Who’s Heather?
    —Huh?
    —Do you love her?
    The two men, father and son, are now seated in a small boat on a slough in the early afternoon of a summer’s day.
    —I let her get away.
    —That’s not what I asked.
    —I love her.
    —Is she pregnant?
    —No.
    —You think your mother will ever get well?
    —She’ll be fine. Don’t we need to get home and check on her?
    —You worry too much.
    —I thought she needed us to—
    —You gonna take a picture of her corpse?
    —What? No. Why?
    —I thought that’s what you and she did.
    —Photograph dead bodies?
    —You love her, don’t you?
    —Mom?
    —More than me.
    —No. What makes you—
    —She loves you more. It’s gonna break her heart when Gauge kills you.
    —Is he going to?
    Suddenly standing on the bank, Gauge looks through a scope on his rifle and fires a round that explodes the center of Cole’s chest. Blood gushes out. Cole falls over backwards out of the boat and disappears into the black waters.
    Driving down the streets of Orlando in heavy traffic, Remington rushes to reach Heather’s gallery before it closes. Behind