Snapshots.
.. ;xsyntheticsmile -- - ---

YOU CAN’T CAPTURE LIFE ON FILM.

( excerpt )

Pressing my finger down on the silver button, the camera clicked, the shutter opening and closing quickly as it captured the rapidly fading scene.

“I don’t see why you carry that camera around all the time. I mean, what’s the point?”

I blinked. Point? What point? Why did there even have to be a point? Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of his ever-sarcastic blue eyes, flecked with shots of green and gold and reflecting what was left of the setting sun.

“The sunset’s so incredible up here,” I began, my voice suddenly wispy and vapid, in spite of myself, “Why wouldn’t I take a picture of it?”

At this, he laughed, his voice buzzing through my ears and only making my lightheaded dizziness all the more apparent. What the hell was wrong with me today?

Turning to me, he smiled, a quiet thoughtfulness coming over him like the small waves that crashed gently onto the shore. He shook his head slowly and continued,

“You take pictures because you want to remember these moments forever. But you know what? No matter how hard you try, how fast you can push that little button, or how many spare rolls you have, you can never really do that.”

Confused, and somewhat insulted, my face contorted in defiance,

“Why not?”

Still wearing that same clever smile, he walked to me, placed his hand on my cheek, and drew his face closer to mine.

“Because you can’t capture life on film.”

- - - -

( PROLOGUE )

Developing Negatives

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever . . . it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

-Aaron Siskind

It’s funny, the way time changes things. It’s like watching a film reel play decrepitly on an old projector screen. Broken, fragmented images streaking across the graying fabric, you watch as a young, sweet, somewhat naïve girl transforms right before your eyes. So full of life, so full of joy, with a gentle face and a heart overflowing with dreams that surely would have carried her to the moon, had it not so quickly been hardened into stone. It’s funny how time changes things, and yet, at the same time, changes nothing at all.

It happened a long time ago. May 24, 1996, to be exact. It was early morning, about ten or so, and the sky was a hazy shade of blue, with grey clouds strewn across it haphazardly, like someone’s sewing machine had just blown up. There really wasn’t anything special about the garden. Sure, it had many different species of plants and flowers, and yeah, it was all dressed up for the annual Bleeding Heart festival, and okay, it did give off a sort of peaceful and yet at the same time playful mood because of the wide variety of people there. But that was it. I mean, you could say the same thing about Chuck E. Cheese. Except without the flowers.

And what kind of name was ‘Bleeding Heart’ for a festival anyway? My teachers told us that we were going on a field trip to experience the blooming of “one of nature’s miracles,” whatever the hell that meant. I was only six at the time, and in addition to that, I didn’t believe in God, so I obviously had no idea what a miracle was. And even after I did find out, I sure as hell knew I hadn’t witnessed one in those flowers.

They grew on bushes, the Bleeding Hearts, and after seeing them I understood their name. The petals really looked like hearts; pink and sometimes reddish in tint, they grew in lines like tear drops from the shrub’s branches, with small, white extensions protruding from the bottom of the heart shape, which I figured to be the “bleeding” part. Locals said that if you picked one of the flowers and threw it into the air, whoever caught it “got your heart.” It was a stupid idea. They were just plants, multi-cellular organisms responsible for photosynthesis and so vital to the world that they will probably outlive humans, who have no purpose on Earth whatsoever. Why we needed a field trip on them I still don’t understand, but it had been a tradition in our little corner of Seattle, Washington for as far back as I can recall, so I simply bit my tongue and went along with it. After all, following hours and hours of shamelessly quoting travel brochures and attempting to convince us that this event was one that “was going to stay with us forever because of its magical beauty and quiet simplicity,” I’d decided that my teachers had garnered at least some kind of reward for their trouble. It’s like playing with a dog. They beg and pant and beg some more, pining for some kind of attention. All you have to do is pretend to be interested for a little while, it makes them happy, and they’ll leave you alone. Simple as that.

I don’t know why I remember so much about that day. Maybe it’s because it was the one-month anniversary of my mom’s death, or maybe even because the mounds of shit my teachers shoveled onto me about the festival might have been true. Or maybe it’s because that day was the very first in what would grow into a lifetime of mistakes and second-chances. It all started that day.

I was never one of the popular kids, and the teachers worried about me. It wasn’t as though I was anti-social or anything. I just found many aspects of childhood inane and pointless. While my classmates were running around the garden, boys avoiding girls trying to give them their flower petals and vice versa, I was sitting on the cold grass, watching, and clicking away, taking as many pictures as possible.

Even back then, photography was my life. The one and only thing that gave me purpose in my small, insignificant existence. People said it was because my father was a freelance photographer, and it was obvious that it had rubbed off onto me. I think that my father’s career might have sparked it, but in the end, I was the one who fueled the fire. Perhaps, however, as I look back at it now, maybe it was my father who drove me to pursue photography. Or, rather, my lack of one.

My mother died of cerebral hemorrhaging. I was still too young to understand what that meant. All I knew was that one day, she was smiling, pretty as always, watching me play in the sandbox while my father stood behind the camera. He was always behind the camera, taking pictures, she’d say sadly, but never in them. But even if he didn’t show it, he really did love her, so he asked someone nearby for a favor, to take a picture of the three of us. It made my mom very happy. She smiled the biggest smile I’d ever seen that day. It’s the one I miss the most. My father lifted me up and swung me onto his back; me, laughing all the while as my mother stood right beside holding my hand. It was our first family photo. It was also our last.

After the flash went off, my mom fell to her knees, clutching her head and crying for my dad and for me. It hurts, she said. It hurts so much. I didn’t know what to do, but I remember I was scared. I kept looking on blankly; wondering what was making my mom hurt so bad and why my dad wasn’t doing anything to make it go away. He stood by and did nothing, just watching in panic as my mom was forced to the ground by the drilling pain in her skull. After a few seconds, he finally ran to the car and called 911. The sirens shrieked through the streets and the ambulance took her to the hospital. Still I didn’t know what to do, and as I could tell, neither did my dad.

We were forced to sit in the waiting room for what seemed to be hours. I didn’t like it at all. My father and I had never gotten along. We were strangers living in the same house. It seemed our only connection was our mother. And our eyes. We both had turquoise eyes, the kind of shade you only see in the glacial waters of Alaska. My mother said that’s what made her fall in love with my father when they met that night on the cruise ship and that it only made her love me all the more. When she talked about it, their meeting, her voice rang with a sort of dreamy wistfulness, like it was only a sweet memory of a life that was now so far away. I didn’t understand why, but I knew that it was my father’s fault. I think that’s when I started to hate him, the mirror, and myself.

But my eyes were different from his, she whispered to me when he wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were cold, lifeless, and hard. Mine carried the sparkle that used to be in his. She missed the light in his eyes when it went away, but then she found it in mine. That’s why she was so happy when I was born, so happy it made her cry. Now I was stuck, sitting next to this man I hardly knew, fighting back my tears and struggling to understand the situation. What was happening to my mom? Would she be ok?

It never struck me that my mom would die. Then again, not many kids think about that. They always imagine their parents to be invincible, immortal. I wasn’t any different. And that was my first mistake.

After some time, a man in a long white coat came outside to speak to my father. They spoke in whispers, to prevent me from listening, I guess, like I was some weak kitten in need of protection. I hated it. I deserved to know what was going on with my own mom, so I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Eventually their voices, the doctor’s young, intellectual one and my father’s coarse and gravelly drawl, grew louder, just in time for me to figure out the basics of what was happening.

She was dying.

There was little they could do.

An operation could be performed, and it could save her life. But it was expensive, and in the end, there was no guarantee she would retain her memories. Yes, it would save her, but she wouldn’t be the same person she once was—.

The younger voice stopped then, waiting for a response from my father. He would let them go through with the operation. I knew he would. He loved my mother, even though he didn’t show it a lot of the time. He loved her. He did. I know he did.

Before replying, the man I hardly knew came up to me and shook me gently by the shoulders. I opened my eyes.

“Rie,” he said softly, a strange tone to his voice. Like for once, he was actually trying to be a father to me. Then he smiled. It was the first time I saw him smile. It gave me hope. “Everything’s going to be alright. Your mommy’s going to be ok.”

He ruffled my hair, then stood and went back to speak to the doctor. As I watched him walk away, I couldn’t help but feel a sudden warmth toward him, as though melting the ice that had built up between us since the day I was born. Everything’s going to be alright, his voice echoed through my chest. Your mommy’s going to be ok.

And I, fool that I was, believed him.

- - - - - -

The funeral was held that Saturday. It was small, quiet, and peaceful, like my mother would have wanted. Not many people came, save a few relatives and friends of the family I had never heard of, much less met. None of them spoke to me. In fact, they avoided me, as if I was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in grief or something. It just proved that none of them knew me at all. I wasn’t sad, to be honest. Even until this day, it never strikes me that she’s gone. I keep thinking that one day I’ll wake up and see her, smiling as she always did, and she’ll wrap her arms around me and sing me a lullaby. It’s the only part of my childish heart that I ever held onto. That, and the photo we took that day. And the flower petal. Those were all that mattered.

So it was only natural that I felt numb. I just sat in stillness, going through the motions of mourning the loss of a loved one. I think that’s what killed me most. The fact that I didn’t cry. Or that I couldn’t.

Sometime during the ceremony, my father buried his face in his hands for a few moments, and then stood in the middle of a prayer and walked out of the building. He loved her. I knew he did. So I thought nothing of it.

After everyone had paid their respects and said their goodbyes—if you count bullshitted, rehearsed lines about “how they understand,” and how “she’s in a better place now” proper goodbyes—I went to go find my father. I hadn’t seen him since he disappeared during the mass. Disappearing. He was good at that. He still is.

But this was the first time it scared me.

Because now, if he did disappear, I was alone.

I hate to admit it, but I have never felt more afraid in my whole life. At first I wandered, forcing myself to believe that all I had to do was turn the corner and there he would be. No such luck. Then I ran, calling out his name, banging my tiny fists on the wooden doors of the mortuary, my shrill voice echoing through its empty halls. Alone. That word kept ringing in my head. Abandoned. I kept trying and trying and calling out in the darkness. No answer. No savior. Just me. Little Riley. Alone. Abandoned. Afraid.

I collapsed to the ground and buried my head in my knees, crying, and wishing to myself that it was all a dream. That all I had to do was shut my eyes and it would all go away. That I would open them again to see my mom smiling at me and my dad right beside her.

That’s when I gave up on wishing.

Then there was a noise. A forceful knock against one of the doors to my left. Another knock. And another. Again the small spark of hope burned within me as I got to my feet and slowly reached out my hand for the doorknob.

Just a fraction of a second later, I regretted every flicker.

I saw a woman I’d never seen before, with long, tousled, auburn hair and a slender build, pressed up against a wall by the man I hardly knew. Another knock. He was thrusting her into the wall and kissing her neck. Kiss. My mother told me it was how grown-ups showed that they loved each other. I came to understand that it showed that they knew how to fake it.

I stared on, a vacant look in my eyes. It took a few moments for the truth to settle in. Everything’s going to be alright.

“YOU KILLED HER!” I screamed, the tears that I had been unable to reach finally gushing to the surface. “THIS IS WHY YOU LET HER DIE!”

The woman and the man backed off from one another, and raised their arms slightly, like they were criminals just caught in the middle of a robbery. That’s what it was. They were thieves. But instead of jewels, they had taken my mother’s life.

I couldn’t handle it. My father said nothing and instead just looked me in the eye. Like it wasn’t his fault. Like, in some twisted way, he was the victim. I hated him. I wanted him to die.

So I ran, trying to escape the truth. That this man’s blood flowed through my veins. I ran, just like he taught me to. But in the end, it proved futile. Just a month later, they got married, and this woman, Lily, as she later came to be called, moved in with us. I never spoke to my father again. I couldn’t even look at him.

He loved my mother. He did. I knew he did.

That was how I learned that love wasn’t real.

- - - - - -

I stood in the very back of the crowd, as the countdown began.

10 . . .

Throw the petals into the air, and whoever catches it catches your heart.

9 . . .

What a waste of time.

8 . . .

Watching my classmates, I noticed the childish excitement in their eyes. They actually believed in this bullshit.

7 . . .

So did the grown-ups, and they had no excuse.

6 . . .

There was no way I would let myself sink so low.

5 . . .

My mother loved, and it got her killed. There was no way. No way.

4 . . .

All I had to do was shut it off, hold onto my heart, and I wouldn’t get hurt.

3 . . .

I was protecting myself.

2 . . .

It was the safest way.

I shut my eyes, as though bracing for impact.

1 . . .

Thousands of pink petals shot into the air and drifted for a few moments, before raining down on the anxious crowd below. And then the rush began. The people scrambled, trying to catch a heart, not wanting to miss out on the lie that was love. They ran like animals. Mindless. On instinct. Besides, who would know whose heart they got? And what about the hearts that weren’t caught? They were trampled underfoot in the mass mayhem. Trampled. Crushed.

I jammed my flower petal into my jean pockets in irritation.

It was a stupid festival. It only proved what I had already known.

Love was a waste of time, idiotic, asinine, and childish.

I didn’t believe in it. I wouldn’t.

—It’s funny, the way time changes things.

- - - -