What's the story?

Tonight at the Writers' Group poet Sheree Mack shared some ideas to get us all thinking and writing. One of the prompts she offered was a set of sepia photographs of a derelict world submerged by water. We were asked to choose one image from the set and write about it. This is my attempt. It's not great but I like it, which is quite something for me - generally I dismiss my own words almost as soon as they hit the page...

"The man stood amongst the rubble, surrounded by the bricks and mortar that had once been his life.  Nothing remained that was recognisable, nothing to show the years of living that had gone on here. No love. No laughter. Only sadness and loss. All  his possessions were gone, his memories stolen away.
Behind him the great yellow arm of destruction worked its devastation. Pounding and scraping to dust the lives of his neighbours. Soon there would be nothing at all. No homes, no roof to shelter a family from the storms of life. No warm hearth to gather loved ones around. Everything was battered to nothingness. All sense of identity gone. The precious treasures of each family intermingled in a mass of dereliction.
As he stood amongst the rubble of so many lives, his memories were caught up like wisps, cast away on a sudden current, into oblivion." 

http://www.flambardpress.co.uk/books/show.php?book=1232&author=sheree.mack

http://www.broadbang.fr/blog/le-temoignage-du-photographe-chinois-yang-yi