Negative

Not too dense, not to thin, just forgotten. Why keep an old negative, why did he keep it in the book, Death be Not Proud? I take my finding into the darkness. Hand pressed to the wall trying to find the switch. The red glow barely lights the room leaving shadows to prance. I walk in the direction of the enlarger, the intoxicating acidic and alkaline fumes filling my lungs and reach up to bring out the negative carrier. I carefully lined up the old negative on the cold metal.

Cold metal. Naked, on a cold metal table. She looks back and sees a big person using a paintbrush to paint her back with some brown yellow stuff. Then she is forced by a hand to look away and pressed to the table so she can not move. Pain. Tears.

I put it back into the enlarger after I dust the negative off with canned air. Why did he stop taking pictures? Flipping the switch, the white light flows past the silver, the haunting imagine appears all in negative.

She backs away from her mother, knowing what will happen next. The white patch taped over her eye. Each time she awoke, each time she went to sleep. Yanking of the tape. Hurt. She hides under the covers clutching her stuffed dog closely.

Focus, look for the texture. The white light gone, I take the precious paper from its dark bag. With paper in hand I blindly blunder over to the paper cutter in the darkest corner of the room, bumping the sink. Did he think he could hide all the photos and for me not to remember? Did he tuck away this negative so I would forget? The darkness became a cloak, I feel for the paper cutter, finding the long blade. With touch I cut the paper into strips with the old dull blade. I wish people would understand when I told them I don’t want to be touched. Each time judging distance with my hands on where the blade may land, keeping my fingers close. Keeping only one strip, the rest find their way home inside the black bag, a cave to rest in. The strip taped to the easel, partly cover, expose to the light, less cover, expose, half cover, expose, a little cover, expose, a sliver cover, expose, all expose.

She watches a red puppy dog hanging in the air as they tape her to a board. They leave her. The table moves into a huge round thing like a cave a bear may hide. Her daddy says it’s the big donut machine. She waits in the dark, not able to move. Things start to move all around her, lights flash. Wondering if she had been forgotten. Everything stops. The table moves and they come back. They pull her hair as they rip the tape from her forehead. She tries to tell them it hurts. They don’t listen. She looks up at the red puppy dog.

Sliding the small paper under the dektol. Agitating the tray. Does he wish to forget or for me not to remember? I remember what I haven’t been told. Little strips of different light value. Watching the clock, picking out the test paper with the tongs into the stop bath. The yellow liquid swirling about.

She holds onto her blanket as she is pulled through the bright hallways. The bag with the liquid stuff followed her. She hopes that nobody moved the bag too far away or that would hurt. Tubes put into her hand. Waiting forever. Watching the fish in the tank, swirl in their swim. She wishes to be with the fish instead of waiting for the pain making person.

From a bath of yellow to the clear fix, the permanents that the image will ever be on this piece of paper. My memories can never be erased no matter how he may wish he could erase them.

She looks at herself in the mirror. Reaching up touching the new blue dots that surround her eye. Ta-ttoos.

Time never stopping, always going, never to wait on anything. But the master of all. I reach up and touch my face knowing where each one lies, the maybe faded with time but each blue dot, tells of my past. Dad can’t protect me from my memories. One point five seconds of light.

She was so young.

To develop, from white to shades of gray. For every detail to take form and tell what the image holds. What does this negative say that forced Dad to keep it and not any of the others?

She plays by herself in the wading pool. Her blinky-eyed baby doll in hand. She looks at the eye and knows the baby doll is like her now as the blue eye turns crusted red forever open.

I pick the paper up with my fingers and blink as the white lights come on. I feel heat fly up my neck and through my eyes causing them to water. I glare at the victim that invades my space. They look blanked face not knowing what to say. I feel numb and cold the only word that tumble out of my mouth while my picture, my time turns black is, "Why". They fled without so much as a sorry.

She was strong she was a fighter.

The paper useless tossed aside. Into the darkness once more, to start a new. A flash of light, dektal, stop bath, fix. Each having their own time, own order. Did he take photos to try to fool his heart into believing he would never have to say good bye? Then to be washed clean from all the chemicals, to be in this form to stay. I suppose Dad is lucky, I will stay around for a bit longer. Marked by the chemistry, I brought picture into the light to see why such a negative was kept. He can’t hide my past from me though, I have been marked, I remember. I stared at the child’s bright white bandage tapped crudely across her eye.

Don’t pull, it hurts.

She wore a hat to hide the lost of hair.

She tossed the wig aside complaining that it itched.

The toddler looked wore and tired but still there she was smiling with her small hand holding violets and clovers and at her feet was a stuffed dog. I stared at the picture of the girl; I saw the smile, my smile. Through all that she had been through that smile still held.