He pulled the photo album off the bookshelf and found it empty.

The house was quiet.  Empty.  His mother gone, and now his father. Nothing or no one stirred.  Avery looked about, the memories, so many memories a dose of happiness and also filled with sorrow and pain, of a life now gone.   He stood in the middle of the living room for a moment and recalled being a precoscious kid  lying on the floor and watching the Lone Ranger, brandishing his own toy gun.  "Bang. Bang. Bang"  he thought silently.  He smiled.  Innocence.

He moved forward into the room which seemed to close in on him. The sound of his steps heavy. Thud, thud. The only signs of life. His tall frame and bulk taking up space, he scanned the bookshelves,  filled with fantasy, science, and his mother's love stories.  She loved her Harlequin Romance novels and Reader's Digest's, she would sit for hours in the bay window in the old rocking chair with a cup of tea and a book.

The journey today and his mission is to find pictures, something he could hang on to.  Proof of life.  His father was an avid photographer who spent hours and hours in his dark room in the basement where he developed his own pictures.  "Where had all of those photos gotten to," he mused.  On the bottom shelf sat an album.  He felt relief and joy, as if he had found a hidden treasure.  Reaching for the album, his bones creaked and popped, he wiped the dust from the book sending a powdery display into the air. He pulled the photo album off the bookshelf and found it empty.