The Man In The Photo
10:30 PM
Lauren grabbed her keys, bag and camera and opened her front door. She only had five shots left in the old mechanical film camera that her husband, Don gave to her for her thirtieth birthday. His been gone five years and she still can’t sleep unless she goes out for couple of hours taking pictures. She couldn’t even get out of bed for a year for a year and a half when Don passed away. Eventually, she started doing things for herself. Still, she couldn’t sleep at night, and when she finally did get an hour of sleep, she had terrible nightmares. She tried everything to sleep at night. One night, she decided to go for a walk with the camera. She hasn’t looked back. Lauren’s built up quite a portfolio with two years of nightly photography which she is yet to develop. Her old bedroom had five big plastic tubs, filled with undeveloped films. She’s been sleeping on the couch for the last two years.
She started to walk. Lauren’s nocturnal like an owl. She liked the city at night, the darkness, the emptiness, gave her comfort. She couldn’t snap away like she usually did as she only had five shots left. She was a little tired and thought to herself to just walk around the block and go back to bed. Maybe finally, she was recovering from the grief. She looked up and by some cosmic chance, saw a shooting star. Instinctively, she pulled the camera up and took a shot. Lauren’s never seen any of her pictures. She hoped that she captured the shooting star. She continued walking.
Summer was well over, and she could feel the crispness of the late-night temperature. A car approached in the distance, and she liked the contrast of the headlights against the darkness. Again, she quickly took a shot. That was a good one she thought to herself.
She reached the end of the block and felt quite sleepy. She turned around to walk back to her apartment. Then she saw something that she hasn’t noticed before. Lauren and Don lived on this block for years before he died, and she hasn’t seen this old house. It was a beautiful old house in the Victorian style. The windows and doors were all boarded up. Naturally she raised her camera and took two shots.
That was enough for tonight she thought.
A few weeks later.
10:20AM
The morning sun came through the window warming up her apartment. The doorbell rang. Her photos of the shooting star that she developed arrived. She was excited to see how it turned out. It was slightly out of focus, but she caught the shooting star. Then she quickly flicked to the apartment on the other side of her block. It was bizarre.
She clearly taking the photo of the old house close to midnight. She also remembers seeing it in as an old house which appeared to need work with the windows and doors boarded up. The photo of the house was taken in the broad daylight, sunny and it appeared to be new with the windows were all open. Lauren could even see furniture inside. She looked a little closer. There was a man in one of the windows. He seemed to be smiling back at her. It was Don.