The Camera [Won FF Contest Nov 14, 2016]

The two boys had been walking into the woods for some time now. The older one, Ronnie, led the way; the younger one, Davin, had been at first interested and now was losing interest. "Come on, this is far enough," he whined. "What do you have?"

Ronnie didn't answer, but he agreed it was far enough. He stopped, turned, and pulled the device out from under his jacket. "This," he said.

"Where'd ya get that?"

"None of your business."

"It's a camera. Can I see it?"

"No. It's a camera, but it doesn't take pictures. It makes things disappear."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes, it does. Let me show you." He looked around to see that someone, perhaps Mr. Phelps, whose land this was, had chopped up a fallen log and the wood was piled up neatly to Ronnie's left. "See that pile of wood?"

"Yeah."

"Watch this." Ronnie lifted the camera carefully to his eye and sighted the pile of wood through it. His fingers curled over what he took to be the shutter button, and then he held the button down. There was a click and then inside the device, a mechanism came to life, analyzing what was in the field of view, absorbing photons and a variety of other particles, creating a record of the objects to the quark level. The recording process took about half a second; then, a dissembler activated and the objects in the field of view began to dissolve. In another second, they were gone completely.

Devin stared at the empty space and then he stepped over to where the wood had been and waved his hand in the air where the wood had been. Then he had a thought. "Let's go find Brenda."

Brenda. Their annoying older sister.

"Yeah, let's do," Ronnie answered.