We raise our hands in horror as the triceratops approaches, trying desperately to flee but stumbling in its path. Meanwhile, a pterodactyl hovers ominously above the fire escapes and rooftops, its wings forming a skeletal arc against a plain gray sky -- it is a sky that yields no weather, a pursuit that never ends, a prolonged limbo, always pending, an inconclusive tale.

My brother Eddie took these snapshots in 1960 when he was thirteen years old and roaming the streets of Brooklyn with a plastic Brownie camera. Although I was one of his most frequent models, I had long forgotten about the photo shoots and I discovered the snapshots only recently in a small cardboard box on its way to oblivion. I always wished I had more pictures of Eddie - over the years his image has fractured into its component elements: a pair of black-rimmed glasses, a cap of straight brown hair, a certain kind of smile that happened quickly and left you wondering why it seemed so sad. But the face as a whole is never in focus. My lens is blurred by time and loss.

So I was initially disappointed when I looked through this odd cache of photos, hoping for a new glimpse of the dearly loved companion of my childhood and finding instead brick walls and empty lots, the open pages of a monster magazine, the blank of his own outstretched hand. I saw the familiar buildings of Coney Island Avenue, the gas station whose red Pegasus was the view from our front window, a stack of abandoned pots on a fire escape, and a clothesline whose mundane laundry that morning achieved a kind of immortality. I recognized the white steps of the boathouse by the lake at Prospect Park where we sat one summer day and sipped vanilla egg creams. And then there were the dinosaur encounters, a series Eddie created by holding toy figures close to the camera and directing my oldest brother Ralph and me to pose in the distance. We were only too happy to oblige: our displays of terror are truly impressive, if a bit over the top. I think we may have hoped to send these shots to the Daily News.

Although only three years older than me, Eddie was a magician and mentor, and I spent many hours under his spell. Armed with a cap gun and sometimes wearing the Davy Crockett hat that we jointly owned and cherished, Eddie scripted battles with imaginary Nazis, produced ingenious shadow shows cast upon a square of light on the wall, and transformed himself for my amusement into a repertoire of eccentric characters, each with his own funny voice and mannerisms. He sketched intricate drawings in pencil and ink, created abstract melted crayon art (he called it radiator painting), and set popsicle stick boats sailing in gutter currents. He taught me the names of all the dinosaurs and famous movie monsters. He taught me to ride the red two-wheeler he had found by someone's garbage can, rusty but salvageable. And most miraculously, he taught me how to read - with his help, random marks began to organize themselves into meaningful shapes, and I too was transformed.

Eddie left home when he was still in his teens and tried a sort of grown up life, off kilter and mostly solo, living in furnished rooms, working odd jobs, getting through college. Now and then he simply boarded a bus for another city, hoping a reason might occur to him along the way. He was living in Atlanta and planning to start law school when his kidneys failed, the result of a genetic kidney disease. A life on dialysis, far from home, would be difficult for anyone, but for Eddie, the world abruptly grew more frightening and obscure. For years he drifted through various circumstances, intermittently hospitalized, trying to make sense of things and live a life that mattered. He became an advocate for patients' rights, writing letters and circulating petitions that only alienated those upon whom his care depended. But though lonely and luckless, he never grew hard-hearted. He bought old books and plastic toys, crammed them into manila envelopes, and shipped them to my daughter, the niece he never met. There was a paper lantern from Chinatown, wedding cake figurines, a small bag of miniature dinosaurs. He loved five and dime stores and second-hand shops, stamps and coins and comics.

The last time I saw Eddie he was sitting in a slant of sunlight on the edge of a bed. His lips were cracked and chalky, and his whispered words circled us like aimless birds, disjointed and defeated. I offered up useless talk and toiletries, pocket cash, a paltry tear perhaps. I combed his matted hair and held his arm, and with slow and painful steps we walked down a corridor and back again. (Oh, what a monumental courage it can be just to wake up and get dressed.) I thought about the boy he was before he was so battered by the randomness of things. Then I stepped out into the newly blossomed streets of spring and turned towards my own life.

In time, the heart finds new capacities for pain. You are inhabited by your sorrow; you breathe emptiness; you cannot remember the before. So I hoped to find another image, but there are no more pictures of Eddie. I stare instead at inanimate objects, solid, cryptic and benign. Is it better to see what he saw than see him? It was a world one could invent and orchestrate. Fate could be kept at bay, pursuits were playful shams, and imagination ruled. I was chased by dinosaurs in Brooklyn, New York. I sat on the boathouse steps with my brother once, sipping a vanilla egg cream, and that matters as much as anything that followed.

Cynthia Carbone Ward