Written in response to Fictionista’s July prompt, which was
A person of a different size than most people is in conflict with a runaway over a camera that takes pictures of ghosts.
People watching is different when you're doing it from the ground. The lowest most people get in public is a park bench, or one of those crappy stools with no backs coffee shops have to encourage you to consume with urgency, if the stares haven't. But sprawled out on your own six by six slice of heaven, you get to see people from angles you haven't seen since you were little. Angles they aren't preparing for, and I'm not just talking about nose hair. Most people set their faces with the expectation that they'll be viewed eye to eye, within a standard deviation or two. That's their facade. From below you can see the impristine workings of their facial hydraulics.
I found a camera in high rise garbage once while dragging my mattress from my daytime hiding spot to my nighttime sleeping spot. The things they throw out. Must've gotten scuffed or something, cause it don't work too good. The colors are all inverted, negative.
I didn't have the money to fix it but I was able to haggle the guy down the street for a memory card. Yeah the things rough but I am too. And, I don't know, with my perspective, maybe someone would like something I made, maybe even enough to buy it. My favorite photo I shot is of a woman in a powersuit on a call. Head on, damn, I wouldn't want to get in her way. But from below she forgot to mask the tightness around the nose and gravity’s pull on her lower lip.
Usually people try to keep me out of their photos. I'll be sitting in a park and I'll see them raise their phones real high, or angle them way too steeply for any kind of a good shot because their calculus says it'll make for a better photo than the alternative. That's why he stuck out. Creepy little guy thought he sly taking pictures of me through a café window, lining it up just right so that his cup was rule-of-thirding its logo in one corner while I was being homeless in the other. Felt like a lobster in a tank while some dumb kid pointed out his dinner.
Why's it creepy when he does it but not me? Besides the understanding we all allot ourselves, at least I never tried to be sneaky about it. Sure, some would argue that makes me even creepier, but I wouldn't trust those people and their opinions.
He jolted upright when he saw me make eye contact with his lens. Packed his stuff and headed for a side exit. Opened the door into an alleyway that I beat him to.
"Why you taking pictures of me, man? I saw you."
"Jesus! God, you scared me. It's— it's for a project I'm doing."
"What kinda project?"
"It's like, dichotomies."
"So if I opened your camera I'd see pics of rich people? White people? What kinda dichotomy?"
"No, I, uh, I want the viewer to provide the other side of the dichotomy through their viewing."
"That sounds pretentious as shit."
"The hell do you know about art?"
"No I mean that in a good way. I take pictures too sometimes. Could I show you?"
I can't read people so well from normal angles anymore but he was guileless. Am I going to jump him, do I have a knife, etc. etc. etc. I think it was curiosity that got him to say yes.
"So what kind of photographer are you?" I asked as we walked towards my spot, "gallery or Instagram?"
"Gotta do both nowadays," he was still tentative, "but I've had some runaway success in the gallery world, so that's what I'm focusing on. Seems more prestigious."
"Yeah, what's prestigious about me?"
"Beats me but rich people, critics, they eat it up."
"In a perfect world what'd you be taking pictures of?"
He thought for a moment. "Animals. They're what kept pushing me to get better."
"Cool, I can respect that,” I said as we got to my spot and he thumbed through my printouts.
"These are yours? They're really, quite good. I love this one with the group of kids."
"Thanks."
"How'd you get your camera settings like that?"
"Ask the previous owner."
"You stole it?"
"No, man, I found it. Happy accident with the lens I guess."
"Oh, sorry. Well whatever happened, it works. That and the angle, it's like you're seeing two faces at once, like they're superimposed on each other or something. It's like constructive interference, or maybe destructive. Whatever'd play better in a description."
"You think you can help me get these in a gallery or something?"
"Yeah boss, totally.”
"Wait a sec," I clambered down, "say cheese!"
He got a grin on in time but his below-face belied confusion and contempt.
“That’s good, could I take a picture of you?"
I handed it over and threw out a smile. He got real low and brought the viewfinder up to his eye in movements that were everything mine weren't. I felt brutish. Click.
I've never seen myself from that angle before. My brute man body was all air around such a small, invisible thing.
"I'll need the camera for a bit, for the gallery of course."
"You'll bring it back?"
"Yeah."
"Can I have something of yours to hold on to til then?"
"Dude, c'mon, I'm good for it. I'm obviously not going to give you my phone or anything," he tossed over his shoulder, already walking.
I probably would've never seen him again but some of my friends on the street helped pinpoint him. Hobo triangulation. I waited outside his apartment.
"Oh hey, the guy with the camera. Sorry, couldn't find you."
"I'm always in the same spot."
"Are you? Anyway, gallery owner said it doesn’t fit the cultural moment."
"Where's my camera?"
"You're not stalking me are you? But yeah, I kinda broke it, real sorry about that. Here's a twenty."
If you got this far you might enjoy Heaven 2.0, a novel about the problem of Evil, power, and AI, that I’m serializing here on Substack!
Why would a perfectly good, all-knowing, and all-powerful God allow evil and suffering to exist in the world? Why indeed? When AI and mixed reality can make every person the master of their own universe such questions are no longer only theological.
Below is the link to the first chapter, I’d love for you to check it out, and subscribe for new chapters every Monday!
I really enjoy your dialogue. It sucks you in, makes it feel real. I always enjoy reading things which make me actively try to work out if a character is to be trusted or not, where the emotions aren't simply spoon-fed to you.
This really gets the gears turning though, which I suppose is probably why you wrote it. It encapsulates a reality beneath the surface that most of us don't and/or aren't willing to admit exists. Good work