Aurora Magazine 2011

Untitled, Kimberly Tabor, WED 2011

the squint lines around his eyes deepened and the skin to the left of his nose tensed, lifting his upper lip in a lopsided fashion. His expression relaxed slightly at the sight of unfamiliar scrawl in the lower right hand corner of the space: MülheimMarch, 1917. Flipping the photograph over the first thing he noticed was the young man standing in the foreground. Initially, his father appeared exactly as Moritz had imagined, right down to the medal on his chest. However, upon closer inspection there were marked differences. For one, the ridiculous smile plastered on his face ruined anything remotely imposing about his figure. Moritz couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen the man without a frown on his face, let alone sporting anything better

than a neutral expression. Also, the saber, which Moritz had imagined held firmly in his father’s grasp, was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps more distressing than its absence, though, was the item that replaced it, namely, the hand of the other person in the photo. She looked nothing like his mother. Even through the discoloration of an ancient black and white photo, Moritz could tell. This woman was dark featured and significantly shorter than both his father and his mother. Her hair was pinned up behind her head and covered by a scarf. A single stray ringlet of hair outlined the contour of her rounded cheekbones. She too wore a smile, but one that looked at home on her face.

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