He wasn’t paying attention. Too caught up with re-inventing the wheel via cell phone, he walked between a four year old and her mother, separating them for torturous moments on the sidewalk. The girl stopped and looked up towards the heaven of heads and prayed for the umbilical touch of mother-fingers while Mother walked on, speaking into headset and window shopped with furtive glances to the left trying, to close cross-Midwest deals on her day off…

The man continued on as the girl spun in confusion and wonder. With the connection between parent and child severed, she finally noticed how large the sky could be and stopped looking for her mother. She stumbled over to the metal pole covered in stickers and wrapped her tiny arm around the base while reaching her other hand up to touch the color vomit above. She felt her fingers scrape across the grittiness of stickers long dead and rusting metal as she lost her balance…

A camera click-watched the action across the street, documenting the separation of person from person and kept clicking for seconds after. He used black and white film, an expensive camera, and an extended lens. The mother had turned the corner the man had just walked around seconds previous while the girl had fallen and now sat on the sidewalk. Her face squished into panic and tears as the pride bandage of a mother’s hug stayed absent. ‘A perfect shot for the next show,’ he thought, remaining on bended knee as his thumb kept the shutter busy…

An older man saw the girl and bent down to her as she looked up with teary, red eyes. He extended his hand and smiled as the girl stood up, wiping her face with the back of her hand as she nodded emphatically. He held her hand and led her back the way she had just come from…

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