The Girl in the Polaroid

There was no word processor or VFX software back then. Computers were unreliable, except for this one [expletive] but he was such an [expletive]. So all you had was your camera, your notebook, and pencil…

You had to get in there mid-fight, sometimes after trailing their moves for weeks. You'd take some shots of the villain and hero duking it out, record their edgy lines and, hopefully, make it out alive in time for dinner at the team's favorite Korean steakhouse.

– Violeta Martinez, Limited Issue, Villain Magazine, 1988.

Chances are you've seen my work hanging on a wall somewhere in a dormitory common room at some fraternity party, or at least heard of it, but not of me. If you're a freshman, you might even consider spooking your parents back home during the winter break. 'Don't!' They'll think you've joined a cult!

You know, like in those short horror films you might have seen during the SFX Department's orientation this year where what's left of the hormonal main cast is close to solving the mystery of what's been ripping them all to shreds for the thrill of it, or because of some angsty childhood trauma bullshit, if Vi wrote the script.

Anyway, it's that scene where the survivors are looking at a picture they took just before all the madness began and they see the smiles on the faces of their murdered friends who didn't know that would be the last picture they would ever take: the girls flashing their titties wearing only skimpy thongs and the boys just barely hiding their junk from the camera.

And then suddenly in a corner of the photograph, in a blurry haze, a creepy little black boy in white knickerbockers and a matching jacket appears holding a barbed noose — his velvet cravat. And then just before the loudest blonde screams, they hear a snicker followed by a sickening crack and the camera cuts to a lopped-off hand holding a blood-spattered black-and-white picture of semi-nude young adults.

That image alone tells the entire story. That's my work. I've been that creepy little boy since I was seven; when I first got my hands on a camera.

"Cut! Cut! CUT! This is just horrible! Saddie, you were three seconds late with that scream! THREE SECONDS!" Vi's voice booms like she's using a mic; I feel her spit land on the back of my neck. "And Spencer, I don't want to see those pearly whites. This is supposed to be a gut-wrenching scene. Why the fuck are you smiling?"

I don't know what's more unsatisfying about sharing my creepiness in short films with questionable writing and shoddy production: that I don't have any ghost powers that could actually kill anyone, or that the main cast, in real life, has scarier powers than the ghost?

I like to think it's this medium in particular I have no interest in. I find the silver screen boring. True art lies in stealing a single moment from time, one of infinite possibility.

You look at a picture from a hundred years ago and you think: who was this person? What life did she lead? Did she have children, or did she spend the rest of her life as a nun after a mid-life crisis? What's the story behind that scar on her lip? Was she too good a kisser to bother covering up that insecurity in red? Was it an insecurity at all? And what of the tattoo that's peeking through her ripped jeans? You could play out countless stories in your head. There isn't a single good or bad one. All her smile does is make you wonder.

I don't want to know which life is right because any of them could have been unless it's someone you know. A picture of a dead friend, lover, or family member is just that. So I hang only pictures of people I don't know on my walls because they tell me stories without end; they don't shove me down the ledge of a boring-old, perpetual cliffhanger like death. Not when there's so much more to tell. So much more to a life.

A decades-old remastered film will have the same ending today. But in a single image, the stories are endless. It's why so much work goes into book covers, or even film posters.

But the genuine celebrities are strangers; we bump shoulders with them every day. They are a mystery of a rich story unedited. Getting to know people ruins that mystery. That's why all I do when I meet someone new is take a picture — I don't ask for the person's name — and we'll talk about anything but ourselves.

I want to look at this woman every day and ask her who are you today? 

Knowing she'll give me a different answer each time makes her infinitely more interesting than any hot actress on television. This beautiful stranger who lived a century ago, a time traveler, caught in a single moment in time. She could have been anyone, perhaps an even better actress in some life.

All you get from a generic 30-minute metaphor for why it's not a good idea to go skinny-dipping in a quarry lake in the woods is a single possibility — an often predictable ending. I don't want it to end. I want –

"What the hell, man?!" Miguel jeers. He's a little out of focus. The light from the campfire makes his olive skin glow. "He really just pops up outta nowhere when the photo's exposed to UV light!"

"Bet. This shit is real weed, bruv!" Sam's higher than cloud nine. He's technically not even holding the picture anymore, but he can still feel it between his fingers. That's his hand Saddie lopped off with her crazy powers, so even the blood is real. His hair's in a neat man-bun, the lighting's no good, I can just barely focus on the scar running down the side of his neck. 'I filmed that.' You might remember he got the scar in freshman year when –

"I bet there's a simple trick to it," Spencer says. He's completely ignoring Vi and still grinning. Saddie passes a hand through his dirty-blonde hair as he rests his head on her thighs. Her skirt rides along the sides a bit. It isn't a bad shot. Composition could use some work, though. Maybe just get rid of Spencer all together?

"Yo, Oliver, how's your mutation work again, man?" Spencer asks.

He's staring right at the camera, at me. Spencer should know better than to ask something so personal or involve me at all in their stupid conversation. I'm just the guy with the camera. But because I don't know where this bloke might end up after he graduates, he's got connections. I play along.

"You're not supposed to, uh, talk to me when we're filming." I say, knowing that'll irk him enough to put me in my place and effectively end the banter.

"We're done filming," Spencer says, furrowing his brow a little.

Saddie looks at me. I feel uneasy. Does she remember something? She's supposed to look at the camera, not at me. Behind the camera is where I belong. And She belongs there, in focus, it's her place. The camera loves her, even with the stupid blonde wig on. But right now Saddie's hazel eyes seem amused by me; it's like there's a curious bonfire burning in those eyes. 

I find it easier to maintain eye contact when looking at people through a lens. She smiles a little and winks at the camera, but then her eyes go wide. 'Shit, she's looking at me again!' Saddie tugs at Spencer's hair, and I swear she plucks out a few strands, but he doesn't even wince.

"Uh, it's got something to do with how my, uh, my body reflects light," I say, vaguely, not letting my gaze leave the camera's LCD.

A horn blares, more spit flies. I swear, Vi's mutation is incredibly useful when filming, but I could live without the deluge. Give me a good old-fashioned sound engineer with a computer and score any day, thank you! I use wipes to clean my neck, still recording.

"Hellooo, director hereee! Look, I know you're hardly amateur actors, heroes in training and all that. But don't you want to, like, make a good impression on the Student Union after your class's little you-know-what?" Vi says, her silver lisp tongue laced with avarice.

Spencer's class probably reached out to the Press and Information Department first, but the coffee-driven fiends care little for misinformation. As if they weren't the ones to blow this story out of proportion. Vi knows that Saddie's desperate. Why else would a class representative in the Hero Program toil in the land of common mutants?

"Can we take a break? I'm exhausted," Saddie says. She's still looking right at me, furrowing her brow a little now. "Tearing off limbs and re-attaching them isn't as painless as I make it look. Even Sam's anesthetized out of his mind after repeated doses. Any more could be dangerous."

"Yeah, we've been shooting all day, man," Miguel says. He's finally lost interest in the picture, thankfully. And Spencer will do anything to be alone with Saddie, even put up with her pulling out his hair.

"Okay, we'll take five… hours," Vi says reluctantly, in her regular voice this time. "Catch some sleep. We'll resume filming at 5 a.m. Tomorrow's our last day in the woods. Let's make the most of it!"

***

It's 2:30 a.m. when my eyes shoot open as I hear a knock at my RV's door. I look at the tiny monitor, picking up the security cam's feed, next to Edward on the wall. He might have been a pinup model with those chiseled abs and the tousled hair and sharp jaw. But he's lived that life already. He's well built for a man I assume lived in a time without supplements or steroids, and proper gyms. Was that his mutation, fucking good genes? Ed's standing well over six feet tall in the picture.

A gigolo from the early Soviet Union today, maybe?

There's a hooded figure on the screen, a few inches away from the tiny camera embedded in my door. The person's breath clouds the view. It's a woman. I can tell because it looks like that's all she's wearing. She knocks again, louder. 

I get out of bed and head for the tiny toilet in the back. I'm desperate for a piss. Why do I feel it only after I sit up? I'm careful not to knock down anything as I weave around my VillainCam's stands in the corridor. These cost a fortune!

My stomach growls. There's a box of cereal in the cupboard and probably some leftover milk from a few days ago in the refrigerator. Breakfast is important.

After relieving myself, Esmeralda, who was a physician during the Spanish Flu? looks down at me as I wash my hands. She's pouting, as if she didn't like that someone took that picture of her. I use a little extra sanitizer. The knocking intensifies. I dry my hands with a paper towel and trash it on top of the pile of oyster pails bundled together in plastic bags. Then I pick up a disposable cup and turn on the faucet. The water's cool, I was so parched.

After whipping up some cereal and milk in the kitchen, I head back to my bed and sit on the edge, watching the screen as I eat. The milk tastes a little funny. But I'm too starved to care. I should've had a decent meal last night. The hooded woman's still at my front door. She's pacing around in small circles.

"Wow, Ed, she's still out there. What do you think she wants?" I say.

'Perhaps the lady dropped a white handkerchief, and you picked it up for her, Oliver? That is what the dames did in St. Petersburg when they were interested,' Edward says. He's come to life in the portrait.

"Esmeralda would kill me if I picked up someone's hankie, and that's just disgusting." I point a plastic spoon at him, on the wall, in admonishment as I greedily swallow.

'Is it the coach that drew her in, then? Some dames fancy a man who rides and knows how to shoot. Yee-haw!' He's making riding motions now, waving his arms around like he's aiming with a bayonet. 'And boy, can your horses gallop! I have never ridden a faster coach!'

"I shoot with a camera, not a flintlock," I say, rolling my eyes. "And this old piece of junk? My RV can barely pull 50 mph on the freeway. For the record, I don't plan on letting any dames onto my coach, you hear me, Ed?"

The hooded girl stops pacing and turns around to leave, but then balls her hands into fists and stops. I hear a muffled curse. She looks right at the security cam and removes the hood. 'Shit! It's Saddie, she remembered!'

The bowl of cereal falls from my hands and I rush for my bag. I quickly pull out my portfolio. I skim through the pages filled with mostly black-and-white portraits, some coloured panoramic landscapes, and a few long-exposure shots of the night sky. Where is it? I can't find what I'm looking for, so I flip the damn thing and shake it senseless. Still nothing, damn it! I reach for last month's issue of 'Pantyhose Magazine' in the back pocket. A Polaroid of a woman that looks uncannily like Saddie falls out of one page. There you are, Monet! I breathe a sigh of relief.

"Found her, Ed!" I say, but he's long gone. He's back to being nothing more than a portrait of a tall, handsome white man.

I flick the lights on, pick up my VillainCam from the cupboard on the side of my bed, power it on, and start filming. There's a wary look on Saddie's face the moment the lights go on. I head for the door, slowly. They're dozens of portrait shots on my walls. All black-and-white, all strangers. I've gone deaf to their stories right now, though. All I hear is my heart race.

It doesn't take long to get to the door. The RV's not tiny, the darkroom just takes up most of the space. My hands shake as I disable the locking mechanism and reach for the handle. But I falter. I then do something so uncharacteristic of myself that I did it only a handful of other times my entire life: I switch to the front-facing camera.

"Hi, Oliver here," I say. I can't quite steady my hands. "If you're watching this, then on, uh, October 3rd 1980, sometime after 2:30 a.m, I probably died at the hands of a Super Mutant: Saddie Bolton. I, uh, I regret nothing."

Saddie swings the door open. Out of instinct, I switch back to the primary lens of the back camera. She's stunning now that the stupid wig's gone, leaving only her own natural red hair dancing in the breeze. The composition's perfect. This is going to be a great last shot. I grin. 'Hello, Monet!'

"What did you do to me, Oliver?" Saddie asks, her hazel eyes glowing an ominous red. "Choose your words carefully. I'm merciful, but you might just experience a world of pain like you never thought possible."

You might have read excerpts of what happened next, in a limited edition Villain Magazine issue featuring an article, 'The Girl in the Polaroid', dated October 3rd, 1988, by Violeta Martinez. Or watched the short clips on VillainTome, as is common these days, though, I suppose that came much later on with the internet highway. But If you have, then you've definitely seen my work, or at least heard of it, but not of me. I'm Oliver Lenz.