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He has developed a tremor in his hands. It seriously sucks ass because more than half of his photos will probably be useless but he can't control it, as much as he tries too.
He is not sure when it started but he thinks it was when he found that wall.
It's bad here and as a foreigner he has to be even more careful than the locals but by now he's able to blend in pretty well, if he keeps his mouth shut.
His beard is vile, his dark hair unkempt and all the dirt and grit on his face make him look darker skinned than he is.
He longs for a bath but at the same time, he doesn't think he'll ever be able to scrub all this off. Yesterday, he nearly scrubbed his hands raw, trying to clean what was only in his head.
He can't stop thinking about that damn wall.
So much destruction and death, all over this godawful country and all around him. He can't understand why people stay, there is literally nothing left.
He just hopes that he will be able to make it out of here. There's supposed to be an opportunity for escape three days from now and he will take it, even if it kills him.
A half-crazed giggle escapes him and with a furtive glance around, he bites it off, scolding himself.
Don't draw attention.
This country drove him near the edge and sometimes, he thinks, also over it. If so, it was the wall that pushed him.
Another furtive glance around, but he's still alone in this dark corner of the bombed house.
He fumbles a bit but his hands don't obey him and so it takes a few seconds before he has his small backpack in his lap and the thin blanket wrapped around himself.
In the distance he can hear explosions and shouts and he starts rocking to sooth himself.
Jesus, this country made a basket case out of him.
[You wanted to come. You literally begged for this opportunity.]
This time, the giggle along with the voice, are only in his head. It's a recent development, the voice, and he's not sure if he's really gone over the edge or if voices tend to happen if a person has no-one to talk to for three months.
He hopes for the latter but suspects the first.
In any case, the voice is right. He had begged for this chance. This opportunity. Thought it would look good on his resume.
If his fucking hands stay like this, there will be no career left.
He's strangely okay with this, doesn't think he wants to do something like this ever again.
But he will make his escape in a few day, has to believe he will.
He doesn't want to die in this godforsaken country.
He keeps rocking, trying to blend out the sounds that never stop coming and the cold that turns so biting at night.
He clenches his eyes, but he can't stop seeing the wall.
He hadn't meant to go that way that day, but one bombing and the whole city reset like a labyrinth.
So he had taken a right when he had wanted to take a left and then he had lost his way and had just kept going because turning around was not always safe.
And then he had hit a dead end and... the wall.
Full of small feet and hand prints, all painted red. Scrambling motions set in blood, where limps had been unable to find purchase.
There had been no way that small bodies would have made it over the wall and indeed, no prints could be seen near the top.
What could be seen though where the blood smears dragging away from the wall towards a corner.
Leading to a heap of tiny bodies and sightless eyes.
***********************************
He bites back a scream by biting his arm, already raw from similar marks.
Three days, he thinks.
Three days.