I am a photographer by trade. I love my profession, but I must confess, it brought me into one of the oddest experiences of my life.
I was at an abandoned manor, snapping off images. I still do it old school with film, so the development process is always a bit of a crap-shoot, and I like it like that. Well, when I got into my dark room at home, there was this one shot that was pretty unremarkable except for one small thing: there on a white wall was the word “I’ve”. I didn’t remember seeing it at all, and so decided to go back the next day.
Upon entering the room again, I saw the word quite clearly and thought this might be an interesting photo from another angle. I snapped off about ten quick photos and when I looked back was shocked beyond belief. There on the wall, instead of the word “I’ve”, now stood “after”. I stood there for what felt like ten minutes in complete confusion.
Shaking my head to come out of it, I drew a shaky breath, raised the camera and shot again.
This time the word “having” appeared. I thought, ‘This isn’t real.’
I took another. This time: “been”.
And again: “killed”.
Resolutely, I kneeled into a static position and let the camera work. Picture after picture, new words were exposed as a tale unfolded before me. There was a churning in my guts as I began to question my sanity. To say that life had become surreal would be an understatement. My heart beat; I was shaking; I was sweating, and breathing hard.
I didn’t even realize it when the wall became blank. I was just kneeling there taking photo after photo of a white wall. Letting go of the button, I stood there. Slowly, I placed the cap on, gathered my belongings and left.
On the way home, I convinced myself (I think I needed to), that when I developed the pictures, I was going to see nothing but white in any of them. That wasn’t the case.
After hours, this is what developed:
I’ve been trapped in this wall for two hundred years after having been killed by my father. I idolized the man, and even now, feel a tremendous amount of pity for him. I know for a fact that his father had beat him mercilessly on a daily basis; my mother had often excused him based on this
On my final day, I was playing on the floor of our parlor with one of his prized possessions: a golden buckle he’d won at a poker game from some famous person. It was the second most important item he’d owned, only outshined in his eyes by a saber that had passed down through his family for generations. I was only being quiet, looking at the shiny gold thing I’d found. I was so focused that I neither heard, nor saw him enter the room
I felt an awful smack, heard a crack as my head hit the floor. Then there was a momentary blackness, followed quickly by blur which became clearer and clearer. I watched my father beat my body from a bird’s eye view. His frothing, red face spat words which were muffled as he drove the buckle down on my already crushed head.
My mother, staring in shock in the door frame, did nothing-could do nothing… at first. But then, I watched as she pulled the saber off the wall. My father must have been as blind and deaf as I’d been while focusing on that plaything because my mother calmly thrust it though his back. He gripped the blade protruding from his chest only briefly before plummeting down upon me.
Perhaps, my mother was afraid of what might happen to her, now that she’d killed her husband, I can’t say, but she did not own it. Instead, she tore down this wall, and bricked us up in it together.
I’m trapped here with my father. He has begged my forgiveness for the past two centuries, and has not yet realized that my forgiveness, having already been given, is not enough. I would like to let my father go, and now that I have your attention, whoever you may be, I would like to ask this: Please unbury me from my hell and rebury me in the cold, soft earth so that I may finally rest.
At first, after reading this, I did nothing. I didn’t know what to do, to be honest. It took me about a week to decide, but on Sunday, I gathered up a sledgehammer and a shovel, and set off.
The bricks were old and could be tapped out much easier than I expected. Before long, there was a gaping red maw in the whit wall. Bricks had hit the floor like so many teeth. There, mummified before me, were the two corpses. Delicately, I picked up the child and carried it out into the fresh air. I dug until the sun dipped low, and it was hard work, but finally I placed the body into its grave, then filled it in.
In the spirit of how this child had written about its father, I decided to, likewise, bury it. I waited until morning and chose a spot far, far away from its offspring.
Last night, back in my own bed, I lay sleepless, my thoughts racing. I was kind of praying that somehow I had helped when I heard my camera suddenly go off.
I jumped up, grabbed it and stared at it. Rushing into my darkroom, I began developing the film. A photo came into view. It was a family of three, staring resolutely ahead. It became incredibly crisp for a brief moment, then faded to black. As it did, I felt reassured.