Stuck In a Moment
By: Karri
Summary: A moment
Disclaimer: Tour of Duty and its characters are the property of Zev Braun and New Line Productions. Written for entertainment purposes only and no money is being made.
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Myron Goldman forced his shaking hand to steady long enough to press and release his trigger. Then the trembling returned. Moving from his hand to his arm, it continued to spread throughout his body. Lifting his foot in an attempt to move toward the chaos too many others were running away from, Myron found his body unwilling. He didn't bother to fight it. The tangled mass of destruction before him was too much to comprehend, too much…
The professional part of his brain screamed at him that he had a job to do. He would have plenty of time to deal with his emotional reaction later. He'd done it before. Since putting down his rifle and picking up a camera nearly thirty years ago, Myron had turned emotional detachment into a fine art. He'd covered the fall of Saigon, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Gulf War, and the seemingly endless conflicts between Israel and Palestine. Surely, he could cover this. It was his job.
It was his back yard. It wasn't supposed to happen here. Myron had made a life of covering wars – the mass destruction and the lives lost in the rubble – but then he came home. Here, he was supposed to be safe. The rest of the world could dissolve into chaos, but here….here, he was supposed to be safe.
It didn't seem real. It didn't seem possible. Surely, the world would stop spinning. The sky had fallen. Didn't it have to stop spinning? The whole city – the whole world – would be stuck in that moment. Frozen in time, like he was frozen in place.
A rumbling beneath his feet shook Myron back to life. He lifted his camera for one more shot before moving closer to the destruction. An advancing gray cloud filled his lens. Seconds before the darkness engulfed him, Myron pressed his trigger. It was his job.
