[ IP ] The Bridge to Nowhere

`` What can you tell me about this photograph, Sara?'' 
 
 `` It looks familiar.'' Says the young woman before me. She glances up at me and hands back the waxy paper. 
 
 `` They found it on your camera.'' I tell her, pulling the digital device out of the messenger bag leaning against my chair. `` This camera.'' 
 
 `` Hey! I've been looking for that!'' She smiles and holds her hands out expectantly. She leans forward, but only as much as her wheelchair will allow. Her waist is buckled in with a custom strap. 
 
 The young woman is quite vivacious, despite her confinement to the rolling seat. She seems to never have quite adjusted to her paralysis. 
 
 `` Where did you look for it?'' I ask her patiently. I've been in this room thrice before. Each time, our encounter occurs the same way. She ca n't remember me or that I always take her camera out with me. She ca n't remember anything. 
 
 `` Everywhere. When did you get it?'' She asks, confused as to why I wo n't restore it into her possession. 
 
 `` I got it from your parents, Sara.'' I say and place the device gently into her hands. She takes it and cradles it closely in her lap. The device was brand new when she had gotten it. It was several years aged now. 
 
 `` I was so upset when I lost this. I had just gotten it too!'' She tries to turn it on, but the dead battery means the device wo n't respond. She smiles as I hand her a charger. She plugs it into the wall socket nearby and sticks the other end into the camera. 
 
 `` Who are you again? You know my parents?'' She stares at me without recognition in her glassy eyes. 
 
 She is stable enough that she does not require a special facility. She is comfortable in her childhood bedroom. The room is furnished only with a simple bed on one side of the bed and a desk on the other side, so that she may move about with ease. Photos cover nearly every inch of the walls, many depicting scenery of nature, or her or friends. The photo I have shown her is not one of them. 
 
 `` I do. I've met them several times. They hired me to help find Monica and Isabel.'' 
 
 `` Who are they?'' Sara cocks her head slightly, biting her lip nervously. I know that she knows of whom I ask. She feels guilt, though she knows not why. 
 
 `` You know who they are, Sara.'' I respond matter-of-factly. I have walked this road before. `` I want to find them and you are the only one who can help me.'' 
 
 `` They're my sisters.'' She whispers, staring at the floor. 
 
 `` Do you know where they are?'' I ask. 
 
 `` No.'' She responds, biting her lip again. 
 
 I return the photo to her lap again and she picks up, staring at it intensely. She rubs her earlobe nervously and I know what she will say next. 
 
 `` They went up there.'' She shivers and thrusts the photograph back towards me. `` They went onto the bridge. I stayed back.'' 
 
 `` Can you tell me where the bridge is?'' I ask. She is distracted as her camera chimes, indicating that it has powered on. She picks it up and begins to play with it. She will find no photos on it. The memory card was corrupted when she was found by the Forestry Service, broken and paralyzed, starving and disoriented. Even now, the camera wo n't take a photo even if parts were swapped out. 
 
 `` No.'' She mutters, searching the functions. `` I do n't remember. Hey, where are all my photos? I took one of this really cool bridge.'' 
 
 She's looping. I'm losing her. 
 
 `` In the Porcupines. You were in the Porcupine mountains, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Do you remember?'' I ask, leaning forward. 
 
 She glances up at me. `` Who the hell are you?'' 
 

