Shutterbug

"Why didn't you just get a digital camera? They're a million times better, and you can find one really cheap."

"It's not the same," Stanley replied, as carefully opening the box that had arrived by courier just a few moments earlier. He gingerly pulled out his Polaroid Spectra instant camera.

"You're an idiot," his wife replied.

Stanley ignored her derision and focused on his camera. It had a few signs of wear and tear, but that was okay. As long as it worked.

He loaded the cartridge and pointed the camera at his wife.

"Don't you dare," she warned.

"Fine," Stanley replied. "I'm going for a walk."

He grabbed his camera and his coat, and headed for the door.

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Why did she always have to be such a nag? Stanley didn't ask for much. He was a quiet, unassuming kind of guy... the kind that marries an overbearing, controlling woman like Trudy and finds himself merely living in her world, rather than being a part of it.

Photography had always been his one thing. His one hobby that sustained his interest and fueled his passions. Why did she have to dump all over everything he did? Stanley liked Polaroid instant cameras. There was something about the instant gratification of seeing a picture develop before his eyes that made him smile. His favorite weekend activity was to walk through the park and take pictures with his instant camera, then watch at they developed, seemingly by magic, from blanks to photographs.

Trudy had brought an abrupt halt to his joy two weeks ago, when, in a fury over his forgetting to empty the dishwasher, she had hurled his old Spectra across the room, forcing Stanley to watch helplessly as it shattered into a thousand pieces.

Stanley shuffled his feet as he walked through the park, looking for a subject he could photograph.

And then he saw them. Two kids, strolling hand in hand through the park. They looked like they couldn't be any more in love. Stanley smiled and shot the picture, hearing the familiar sound of the photo being ejected.

He watched the photograph intently, eagerly waiting for it to develop into his captured moment.

As the image came into focus, Stanley stared at it, confused. It wasn't turning out like the photograph he had taken. It wasn't of a lovestruck couple holding hands. It was...

The boy...

Clutching his stomach...

Collapsing onto the ground...

His girlfriend screaming...

As man with a knife makes off with her purse.

Stanley scratched his head, wondering what to make of the photograph.

And then he heard a scream.

Looking up, he followed the sound of screaming over to where the girl was standing... looking down at her boyfriend on the ground... as a man ran away from them with her purse.

Exactly like in the photograph.

Stanley dropped the photo in shock. Not knowing what else to do, he ran. He ran until his blood boiled and his lungs burned. He collapsed against a newspaper stand on the street corner, gasping for breath.

Surely he had just imagined what had happened. Some kind of weird trick his mind was playing on him. He would prove his mind wrong.

He took up the camera once again, and photographed a young woman waiting at the other side of the crosswalk across the street. He snapped the picture and anxiously tugged the photo from the camera, flapping it in his hand to develop it faster.

As it developed, the light turned green.

The young woman started across the street. Stanley was looking at his still-undeveloped photo when he heard brakes screech and a horn blare. Then, the sickening thump that drew his attention toward the scene in the street. The young woman slid off the hood of the car that had run the red light, and bounced along the pavement before coming to a broken, bloody stop in the middle of the intersection.

Stanley's jaw dropped as he witnessed the scene in front of him. People were swarming into the street, most of them crowding around the young woman in the intersection. Stanley was so mesmerized by the events that he almost forgot to look at the photo.

Staring back at him was a fully-developed picture, capturing the exact moment of the car slamming into the young woman in the crosswalk.

Stanley gasped, his eyes welling up with tears.

What had he done?

He was responsible for the deaths of two people. Maybe he didn't understand how, or know any better, but he was still responsible for their deaths.

He was a murderer.

Stanley crumpled up the photograph and tossed it in a nearby trashcan, hurrying away from the scene as quickly as possible.


-------------------------

Arriving home, Stanley slipped inside the house quietly, setting his camera down on the coffee table as he collapsed into the sofa. His mind was racing, not knowing what to do. Those poor people... how had this happened?

"Stanley!"

His head snapped up in acknowledgement as his wife bellowed his name.

"Just like you to walk out on me, and then come home and put your feet up while I'm slaving away in the kitchen! The least you could do is offer to help out."

Without thinking about it, Stanley rose up off the couch and joined his wife in the kitchen, where it was apparent her 'slaving away' in the kitchen was little more than setting out all the ingredients for a meal.

"Well?" She prompted. "I'm hungry and dinner isn't going to make itself."

Stanley turned around and headed back to the living room.

"Stanley! Where on Earth are you going?"

"You're looking particularly lovely tonight, Trudy. I just wanted to capture the occasion."

Trudy beamed at the compliment as Stanley returned with his camera.


(974 words)