Written by Dre Hill
Light slices through the window, beaming onto the white carpeted flooring. The carpet is coarse and coiled. It’s soft under the toes, but with an itchy quality. Time has worn it. It has not aged well. Old fingernails clipped, or bitten, pepper the ground. They lie in plain sight. I pay them no mind. My bank is empty, the mental and emotional toll leaving me in overdraft. I don’t want to be here.
The house is alive. Online conference calls echo off the walls. Circles spin. The bandwidth is being stretched. Devices lag. This is the new normal, arrested in sanctuary, fighting against time and finite internet. My laptop sits on my bed. There is so much to be done. Projects. Essays. Forum posts. My motivation is fleeting, a roaming nomad. It never sticks around for long.
My camera sits atop the tripod. Its legs, coiled like an octopus, reach for the ceiling. Speckled dust coats the lens. A gentle blow clears that right up. The TV casts a soft fluorescent glow from the far side of the room. Spotify is open and music floods out the speakers. The track pulsates with soft, melodic, island vibes. Creativity crystalizes in the air and rains down. A tangible touch to the skin, taste to the tongue.
I grab my phone. The screen has turned into a viewfinder, mirroring the view I would see with my eyes pressed against the camera. I slowly lay down. The braided hairs atop my head bend and twist to the pull of gravity. Some come to rest laid across my face or the carpet. Some dangle in the air; coarse, coiled ropes hanging mere inches from the ground. I adjust my body as I get into position, my torso twisting at intricate angles. My arms fold in on themselves, hovering close to my body. A protection. Eyes set and sunken.
It adds a sleepy, almost dreamy quality to the face, to the look. Lips pursed and parted, leaving a small gap for air to whistle through between the teeth. I press the big circular button displayed on the phone screen. The orange shutter light starts flashing on the camera, in sync with the chiming camera timer. I nudge the phone away from me, watching it slide toward the camera and out of the shot. My eyes snap back to the lens, the countdown chimes having intensified. Beep! Beep! Beep!
The shutter snaps. The flash bursts forth, freezing a single moment in forever. The world is blinding white light. Then it is a bedroom backdrop. A black camera hunched squat over the carpet via tripod. The blue bunk bed with a built-in bookshelf and desk tower over it. Slowly I unfurl my limbs, relaxing my body and its posture. My arm snakes across the carpet, my index and middle fingers tiptoeing across the surface towards my phone. Smooth, sleek surfacing. Slowly my fingers curl against the exterior, firmly gripping the translucent black protective casing.
I drag the phone, pulling it closer to my body. With my free hand, I gently push against the carpet. My hair glides through the air, swinging gleefully as I sit upright. I pull the phone up to my face and tap on the bottom left corner of the screen. A photograph pops up on the screen.
There it is. A moment captured forever. A memory eternally immortalized. I study the photo closely. My eyes trace the path of the light, the curves and twists of my form. My fingers trace the swaths of shadow, large contained masses of assumed nothingness. It’s beautiful, artistic. My index finger hovers to the right side of the screen. It sits there for several seconds. My eyes are locked on the screen. The photo, the portraiture, is a work of art. The finger slowly descends and presses on the trashcan. In mere seconds it’s gone forever. It was a beautiful photograph, truly. It just wasn’t what I wanted. I reset the camera.