Moments

They have no idea.

All their laughter, their disdain, their pity.

Not a one of them has a clue.

I keep to myself in the hallways, away from their hands and their eyes. I can see it in their eyes, the superiority masking the fear.

How easy it would be for them to become what they think I am.

Pathetic. Losers.

I close the darkroom door, closing them off, leaving them to their reality. In here is the truth.

In color, in black and white, in sharp contrasts and soft shadows. Moments of truth and beauty, of ugliness and lies. Life.

The camera captures them, reveals them. And I control the camera.

The alien worlds of soft skin and perfect hair contrasted with scars and pock-marks and cigarette-stained teeth. Kiss-smeared lipstick and watery mascara; patches of stubble and razor-burns against brown-pink skin.

I watch them form, infused with life under the crimson glow. There are no secrets here.

Some I discard immediately, rejected for lack of focus. They are added to the refuse pile without ceremony. Dismissed. Unworthy of more attention.

Some are too harsh - stark, desperate lines and garish contrasts. They demand attention, but don't hold interest. I slide them into a pile to languish, ignored.

The average is next, and it's the largest group. Technically fine, but with no spark, nothing unique. I toss them in the pile with the rest, a towering stack of the utterly normal.

A much smaller pile remains, containing both the grotesque and the sublime. Sometimes it's hard to tell one from the other.

Here are the carefree and the guarded; wide-eyed laughter and barely-concealed tears. Poetry and dirges.

One catches my attention and I pick it up, my hand not quite steady. I remember this - sitting alone outside, half-concealed, waiting for the tormentors to leave for the day before starting the long walk home. The pain and humiliation of being rammed into the flagpole earlier still throbbing through my body.

Delilah was there, talking to Stan who was no more than a shadow along the edge of the image. She was tilting her head just so, looking away as she tossed her hair, a condescending smirk twisting her lips. Beyond her in three-quarter profile was Zeke, with wind-ruffled hair and his typical don't-give-a-shit expression. They didn't seem to know that the other existed.

But I had caught them, trapped on film, where they could be studied at leisure. My leisure.

I could feel the connection like a physical draw, and brought the image closer. In control.

The tiniest bit of pearl white against ruby, Delilah's teeth caught for the briefest of seconds against her lip, her eyes locked with Zeke's. His hand tightened into an almost-fist and the tension in his shoulders betraying his interest.

A second in their time, but an eternity here.

I slip the photograph into my bag, into the compartment where I keep things like this.

I put the rest of the photographs into their places and carefully straighten the room.

I never turn the white light on in here, just the red. When I step out into the hallway the bright light makes me squint. Tears prickle against my eyelids as I try to adjust.

Someone bumps into my back and I stumble forward an awkward half-step. The noise of people around me sounds like the indifferent roar of machinery.

The camera presses against my chest, a reassuring weight. I reach up to steady it and the contact grounds me. I move forward into the press of bodies, careful to keep the smile from my lips.

They have no idea.

::end::

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