The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man

Daniel Merrick didn’t know for sure that he had a dad, until he didn’t. According to his mother, his folks had split before he was born. His mom always told him that his father was invisible. As a child, he’d accepted the story, but as he grew older, the mystical tale of ‘the invisible father’ grew more troublesome and one of those things he’d soon enough just forget about entirely. So he grew up without the fabled father and managed quite well, thank you very much. After a while, Daniel quit pestering his mom, for he had deduced that he must be a product of in-vitro or something similar. She never seemed to want to talk about his father, nor answer any of the myriad questions he had, so what was the point in continuing the query?

Much of his time growing up was spent lost in other worlds: ones created out of words that cast their spell over him, transporting him far away from the empty, colorless one he lived in. He became a fixture at the local library. The librarian was a kindred soul: She never talked much, but always seemed to have a new book to show him. She introduced him to the National Geographic magazine and he spent an entire summer devouring every issue that the library had. By the end of that summer he knew he was meant to travel, and that somehow what he saw would be important. He wasn't quite sure how or why, even, but he knew he needed to go see all the far flung places he'd read about--it was as if they pulled at him, beckoning him to see them through his own eyes.

He had just turned seventeen when he discovered a book on photography and movie making called “My Side of the Lens.” He fell into its pages that discussed light and focus and perspective and when he emerged, he knew exactly what he would do with his life. Two quotes in the book, one by Andre Kertsz, seemed to stay with him, to make sense out of the things around him that made no sense at all: “The camera is my tool. Through it I give a reason to everything around me.” The other, by the author, was equally inspiring. “The camera sees the finite; but the eye behind the camera sees with infinite soul.” He went out and bought a camera and film.

He checked the book out so often that the librarian finally gave it to him. He carried it with him everywhere, reading and re-reading it so much that the pages became frail with use, corners dog-eared and passages smeared with ink as he highlighted important points. He looked for other books by the same author but never found any. The dust jacket, sans photo, stated merely that the author preferred his side of the camera.

From then on, Daniel carried the camera with him where ever he went. He took pictures of everything, playing with angles and light. Peoples' expressions, a flower's shadow, the theater in town after the fire that destroyed it. He began to see his entire world through the camera's lens: Whether a soft blur or in crystal focus, he was the one deciding how the world looked.

Over time, Merrick made a name for himself as a photographer and traveled from one remote locale to another. He neither put down roots nor stayed in any one place for too long. He poured himself into his work, poured his heart out into his ability to capture the photo at precisely the right time so as to have it tell an entire story in one blink.

Although Merrick made his living from showing the stories of strangers, he was not a people person. He wasn’t one for small talk, because it seemed that no one ever said anything of any importance in those conversations. It was noise. A mumbo jumbo of discordant sounds signifying, he thought with a rueful grin, nothing. Nothing at all. Photographs, he thought, were far more eloquent.

His mother had been the queen of pointless conversations: she would go on ad nauseam about some minutia that had nothing to do with anything at all. It was talk for the sake of talk: merely noise to fill the void. Merrick grew to think of his mother as a black and white image in a colorful world. It was as if something, some part of her, was missing and it had taken all the vibrancy out of her. For years he’d tried to be whatever it was that she was missing, but it never seemed to be enough or the right something.

He'd left home the day after he graduated high school and never looked back. Post cards from Tibet or Tahiti, or copies of his work that appeared in magazines made their way to her until she passed away. He had no desire, however, to return to the tattered photographic image his mind held of that mystical place called home. In fact, as time exposed more of the world to him, the images from his childhood faded into a grey blur like an old picture left too long in the sun.

His current base of operations was a small, third floor studio apartment in Manitau Springs, Colorado. Sparsely, but comfortably, furnished with a bed, a desk, a comfy chair and a coffeepot, it was more of a landing place between trips than a home. Located midway down a cobble stoned street that was a mecca for tourists who’d come to take the cog train to the top of Pikes Peak, it was small, full of odd architectural details and rented to him by a quirky ‘lost in the sixties’ pottery lady who didn’t give him any grief and never raised his rent. It was a town full of strangers coming to spend their money at the odd assortment of stores run by characters out of some fantasy novel. It suited him perfectly, and in his down time between assignments, was a year round source of photographic anomalies.

He was, therefore, a bit surprised when Sophie, or Saffron (as she liked to be called) knocked on his door the morning after he’d returned from his latest jaunt to Birchar in Algeria. He was jet-lagged, groggy with lack of sleep and hadn’t showered in, what? three or four days, at least.

“This came for you several months ago,” Saffron said as she handed him a package covered in brown paper and tied with twine, with a multitude of postmarks on it from having chased him halfway around the world. “Oh, and here’s the rest of your mail. “ She handed him a paper bag. “Most of it is junk mail, I think, but just the same, here it is. Drop off a check before you vanish again.” With a quick smile, she turned, her floral skirt dusting the narrow stairs behind her as she returned to her pottery store below.

Dropping the bag on the floor, and putting the package on his desk, Merrick headed for the coffee pot. He reached into the freezer and brought out a sealed container of his own special blend. Part Kona and part Kenyan, the smell of it while brewing was enough to get his blood moving. Rather than stand there wishing it was already coffee, he staggered into the tiny shower and let the steamy hot water cascade over him. Decent water pressure at last, he thought as he slowly came back to life. Showers had been few and far between in the hills outside of Birchar. Leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him, he dug his last razor out of his backpack. Returning to the bathroom, he looked at the face peering at him from the cracked and spotted mirror.

Dark hair, badly in need of a haircut, dripped on his shoulders. Dark eyes that had seen more than any eyes ever should seemed huge in his rather thin, sparse face. He shrugged as he dropped the razor in the trash. He was what he was. Out in the kitchen, he poured a cup of coffee into a chipped mug some previous tenant had left behind. He inhaled deeply, then took a swig of the strong, bitter brew.

Setting the mug down on his desk, he pushed his laptop to the side and looked at the much-traveled package for a few moments. The return address was illegible.
Inside was a brown wrapped parcel that felt like a book and another envelope with the words, “Read me first.”

Merrick slowly sipped his coffee, savoring his special blend while staring out the window as he toyed with the envelope. The early November sky was slate gray and the old glass rattled as a brisk wind howled down off the mountain. Snowflakes blew around and the village below seemed muted into black and white. He reached for his camera, but then stopped and looked once again at the envelope in his hand. He shrugged and opened it. The letter was dated close to six months earlier.

Dear Daniel,
If you are reading this, it will mean that I have shot my last roll of film. I am dying of cancer and have, so the doctors tell me, less than six months to live. It has severely affected my eyesight and I expect to be fully blind well before then. I am running out of time and I can put this off no longer.

How do I say this? Daniel, I am your father. I didn’t know that you existed until I received a letter forwarded to me after your mother passed away. I had seen your work of course, but other than thinking it an interesting coincidence, your last name and all, didn’t make the connection with your mother until it was too late.

I have never been a people person. I have preferred to keep the world at a safe distance. The one exception to this was a memorable summer many years ago when I met your mother. While I have fond memories of that time, all it did, in the long run, was reinforce the fact that while I truly loved your mother, I am simply a solitary soul. Your mother didn’t tell me that she was pregnant when I was leaving. Had she, I would have tried to stay and I think she knew that.

Filming as I do, in black and white, your mother was a brilliant combination of color and light. I loved seeing the sunlight play off her face. She was such an expressive soul, but she'd have withered with my being away so much.

Until this moment, I have been something of an invisible man in your life, and I think it should remain that way. I have nothing to offer you now, except the enclosed package. Although I have learned much about your career, I cannot claim to know you. But, in a way, I think I do, and that we are much alike, you and I.

Ian Morrison

It was a long time before Daniel opened the package. Afternoon, shadowed early due to the mountain towering above, had drifted into evening when he finally opened it. It was a copy of the book that so long ago had inspired him to be what and who he now was. On the first page, beneath an old photograph of the author behind his camera, was written:

To my son, Daniel.
Always remember
that there are two sides to a lens.
Live on both sides.
I.M.



1937