Ah, yes... I remember despair like yours. [ He drops his eyes down to his camera and gently rubs his fingers over the device in a loving manner. The tone he speaks is not sorrowful, regretful, but rather still full of light and joy. ] You see ... I'm always in pain.
[ Stefano looks up from his camera. ] An IED ... exploded just as I was taking a photograph... it destroyed the camera that was in my hands, and pieces of it lodged in my head. I can feel them... squirming around ... [ His eyelids drop slightly and he takes one hand off of his camera to move his hair out of his face. A camera lens is lodge in his right eye and the area around his face is horribly scarred. Tendrils of wire extend out from his eye and over the scars of his face. ]
Indeed, I know what it is like to feel desperate for pain to end. But now... it is but a distant memory to me. The pain will always be with me, but I no longer feel the agony that comes with it. [ He drops his hand down to return to caressing his camera. ] As for the people that I've taken photos of... I can't say if they felt that same desperation.
[ He smiles. ] It may be that the desperation has not yet hit them. But maybe somewhere... they feel it. [ Those he has taken photos of are in frozen time. They are neither alive nor dead. Their deaths replaying just at the moment of when they should die, but unable to do so. Eternally bleeding out. If they have any thoughts left, he wonders what they might be, but ah ... art doesn't need to do the speaking. He is the artist and he will speak for his art in far more eloquent words. ]
cw: discussion of suicide, eye horror
[ His chin dips a little in greeting. ]
Ah, yes... I remember despair like yours. [ He drops his eyes down to his camera and gently rubs his fingers over the device in a loving manner. The tone he speaks is not sorrowful, regretful, but rather still full of light and joy. ] You see ... I'm always in pain.
[ Stefano looks up from his camera. ] An IED ... exploded just as I was taking a photograph... it destroyed the camera that was in my hands, and pieces of it lodged in my head. I can feel them... squirming around ... [ His eyelids drop slightly and he takes one hand off of his camera to move his hair out of his face. A camera lens is lodge in his right eye and the area around his face is horribly scarred. Tendrils of wire extend out from his eye and over the scars of his face. ]
Indeed, I know what it is like to feel desperate for pain to end. But now... it is but a distant memory to me. The pain will always be with me, but I no longer feel the agony that comes with it. [ He drops his hand down to return to caressing his camera. ] As for the people that I've taken photos of... I can't say if they felt that same desperation.
[ He smiles. ] It may be that the desperation has not yet hit them. But maybe somewhere... they feel it. [ Those he has taken photos of are in frozen time. They are neither alive nor dead. Their deaths replaying just at the moment of when they should die, but unable to do so. Eternally bleeding out. If they have any thoughts left, he wonders what they might be, but ah ... art doesn't need to do the speaking. He is the artist and he will speak for his art in far more eloquent words. ]