First I had a large 8X10 printed up of the shot I took, with the distinctly human-shaped black blob falling through the blue sky from the statue’s raised hand.

Then I pushed, sneaked, sweet-talked, and bribed my way into the editor’s office of the newspaper.

I slammed the photo down on her desk, hoping for the surprise and Wow factor of my shot to overwhelm her and make my name appear in the paper.

She looked at it, stared me down, and asked what time I took it. “Yesterday, about late morning.”

She smiled, “The Dummy Project.”

“What?” I’m sure I looked stupidly back at her.

“The Dummy Project was taking place. They drop dummies off the statue for suicide awareness or something.” She waved me away and turned her back to look over some other papers, more important than my photo of a dark shape.

I was dumbstruck. I stood there a moment, then took my photo and left in a daze. People bumped me, ignored me, talked over me, and cursed at me, but I barely noticed.

Outside, I stuffed the picture in my tote.