by Ponzo, Gary
The crowd finally started to thin out as families packed up and parents took their tired children home. Mark felt stupid as he trudged through the sand on his third pass along the shore. Kids were starting to look familiar now, but he didn’t know if it was because of the photo or only because he had seen them on his first two passes. He scanned the water, but after an hour, the glare from the water sent a spike of pain through his forehead and he longed to go home. He would just go to the end one more time, turn around and walk back.
Halfway to the end, he spotted a girl whose swimsuit resembled the one on the girl in the photo, but she was only knee deep and scooped water in a little cup, dumped it and repeated the process several times. She seemed fascinated with pouring the water through the fingers of her opposite hand. Mark smiled and continued to the far end of the beach, did an about face and headed back. When he was at the mid-point, he looked for the little girl again. A shard of fear cut into him. He couldn’t see her, but he brushed his fear aside. The assurance acted as a Band-Aid as he tried to stifle his irrational fear. She had only been a few steps into the water, and her mother had probably just called her back to their blanket or something. This whole exercise had been a waste of time on his part, but at least now he could put the nightmare to bed.
A scream rent the air and an instant later, the lifeguard’s whistle blew. Mark felt as if someone had slugged him in the chest and zapped him with a Taser all at the same time. He spun and watched as a lifeguard dove into a wave. A woman sobbed and pointed into the water as a lifeguard from an adjacent chair raced to the point where the first had gone in. The lifeguard blew her whistle and directed everyone to get out of the water.
The first lifeguard surfaced much farther out than Mark would have expected in such a short time, but the young man only came up briefly, grabbed a breath of air and ducked beneath the surf. He repeated the process several times before he came up with a limp little girl. She was the same girl that he had passed just moments before.
Horror lodged in Mark’s throat, choking him. He staggered back as the lifeguard laid the little girl upon the packed sand. Mark gulped in an attempt to swallow the horror. Her eyes. Merely slits and absent signs of life, they reflected only blue sky. With a hoarse curse, he stumbled and turned, racing for his car. How could he have taken this picture yesterday? At the bottom of a dune, his knees gave out and he vomited onto a tuft of grass.
* * *
Mark glared at the picture, pointing with one finger as he kept a tight grip on the neck of a beer bottle.
“You can’t exist!”
With a sharp flick of his wrist, he tried to send the photo sailing across the room, but it boomeranged and landed on the recliner to his right. The little girl was head down, and from this angle, the slit eyes seemed to watch his every move. Upside down, the photo appeared sinister, her eyes accusing him of failing to save her.
“I didn’t know! I didn’t know…how was I supposed to know you were real?”
He drowned a sob, tipped the beer bottle, and drained it. Leaning forward, he set it on the coffee table, not caring when it wobbled and fell, rolling into the six other bottles before stopping with a clink.
His phone rang and he glanced over to where it rested on the cushion beside him. Mo. He didn’t pick it up and instead, opened a fresh beer from the carton. He had five more. That should be enough to get him some sleep without the nightmare of the drowned little girl.
He flipped the beer cap, aiming for the now empty carton of the recently polished off six-pack, but missed and the cap skittered off the table and rolled in a circle before spinning to a stop beneath the chair. He took a long noisy guzzle, lowering the bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Why had he been shown the tragedy? And how? He didn’t believe in psychics or telepathy or any of that crazy hocus pocus shit. When he had arrived home, he had opened the back of the camera, inspecting the inside. There was absolutely nothing within it which could explain how it could have worked. It was just an old scratched hunk of metal.
Whatever the method of showing the future, it was clear the method worked. It had shown him a dead kid and that was exactly what he had seen the next day. Was it some kind of cruel punishment from…from whatever had imparted the magic into the camera? Magic! That was it. The camera was magic. If he couldn’t figure it out he would assume it was magic. He nodded, ignoring the dizziness the movement caused, and took another drink. Satisfied with the source of the power, he no longer cared how it came to be in the camera. It could have been God or aliens, or hell, it could have been a young boy wizard.
What had he done to piss off an alien? Why him? The camera was from Afghanistan and he had only tried to help the Afghani women. It didn’t seem fair. Shame flooded him, sloshing around in his veins with the blood and alcohol. Why not him? Here he was whining about fairness when he was just fine and dandy, all the while that sweet little girl was dead. No wonder he was being punished. All he would have had to do was keep an eye on her. He could have saved her if he had tried, but instead, he had walked past, even knowing that she resembled the girl in his picture. But he hadn’t really been looking for a live girl. He had been looking for a dead one, and eventually, he’d found her.
With a choked cry, he threw the half-full bottle against the column of brick that made up the opposite wall. Beer and glass exploded in the room. Sitting on the edge of the couch with his elbows braced his knees, he covered his face.
Emotionally drained, he slumped back but didn’t reach for another beer. What if he had stayed near the child? Could he really have saved her? It didn’t seem possible. Even if the camera was magical and could photograph the future, how could that future be changed? Wouldn’t the act of changing it render the photograph impossible? Wasn’t that some kind of paradox or something? His brain was muddled with alcohol, but he was sure there was something about paradoxes in Back to the Future. Marty couldn’t interfere too much or it would alter the future in unpredictable ways. He shook his head in wry disgust that he was basing his camera’s magical properties on Hollywood science. What the hell, it made as much sense as anything else he could come up with.
What if he tested his hypothesis about the camera being magical? He could take some more pictures and see if any showed the future. He jumped off the couch, staggering just a little as he strode to the kitchen counter and grabbed the camera. He had some film in his camera bag and he loaded it. There was just enough light to get a few pictures if he hurried.
Flinging open a window, he took random photos of the street below. He didn’t care about composition or lighting, he just aimed and clicked on pedestrians crossing the street, a truck double-parked, a dog trotting down the street, and more until the roll was finished.
As he developed the film, it dawned on him that what he was doing could be considered borderline crazy and if he told anyone, they would laugh their asses off, and then call the men in the white coats. What sane person took photos with the expectation that some of them might be photos of the future?
For the most part, the resulting photos appeared to be exactly as he photographed them, except for one. He was sure he had taken a few pictures of a double-parked truck near the intersection, but instead of the truck, he had two images that he didn’t recall taking. He should have taken notes so he would know exactly what he had photographed, but it was too late now. He would have to rely on memory. The sedan was parked at the curb in one photo. A man was in the driver’s seat and from the angle of the wheels and the way he was looking at his side-view mirror, he appeared to be pulling away from the curb. In the second photo, the car was crushed in the intersection by a beer truck. There was no doubt he would have remembered taking a photograph of that if it had happened.
Mark studied the two photographs of the sedan, setting them on the kitchen counter as he rubbed the back of his neck and thought back to the photo with the child. Were there clues in it that he could have used to save her? Since he had taken the photo straight dow
n, he couldn’t determine the angle of the sun. While it was evening now, did that correspond to when the accident would take place? Would it happen tomorrow, next week or fifteen minutes from now? The possibilities were endless and they churned through his mind like a locomotive with each boxcar representing another scenario.
He noted the white box truck behind the sedan. There was on writing on the side; that in itself was a clue, as most were painted with the name of a business. Rummaging in his junk drawer, he found a small flip notepad and jotted down the white truck clue. Obviously the sedan itself was the biggest clue. He could watch for that car and when it showed up, warn the driver and—what was he thinking? He threw the pencil down in frustration. Nobody would believe him. He could hear himself now…’Uh, excuse me, but when you leave the curb, you’re going to get clocked in the intersection.’ Should he show the photo to the man? He played that over in his imagination and couldn’t see it ending well. The man would think he was a nut right out of the Twilight Zone. Which brought up another worry—even if for some bizarre reason the man did believe him, where did that leave the man? Would he ever be able to pull the car from the curb or would there always be a beer truck in its future? What if the sedan was towed? Would that action save the car and the driver or place the tow truck in jeopardy too? He fought the urge to toss the photos in the trash and instead, slammed a fist on the counter and stabbed both hands through his hair.
His head pounded with tension and he finally gave up running all the different scenarios over in his mind, took a couple of pain relievers and went to bed.
* * *
In the morning, he woke up, pulled on yesterday’s jeans, shoved his feet into his sneakers and grabbed a butcher knife out of his kitchen drawer. He knew he looked like a demented psychopath as he raced down the steps, but he had dreamed of the photo. The man was going into the bakery across the street. Mark had seen him in the dream. He came out with a white bag and a cup of coffee that he sipped before opening the car door. His attire had been business, but most importantly, Mark had felt like he had been in the car when the man had started it. He distinctly heard the deejay on the radio say the time. When he had awakened, it was only five minutes before that time.
His only hope was to disable the vehicle. Speaking to the impending victim was too unpredictable. The guy would in all likelihood ignore the warning. Mark knew he would if put in the man’s shoes. Just before he awoke, his dream self was getting a knife, and so he did the same. He could puncture the tires and prevent the car from being driven.
He burst through the door to the outside, and leaped down the five steps from the stoop. He stumbled a step before regaining his balance and dodged a passing car, ignoring the blast of its horn. With a glance left and right, Mark jabbed the knife several times into the front driver’s side wheel. No way the man would miss it, but for good measure, he did the same to the back wheel. He prayed the tires would go flat before the car left the curb. The accident happened only a few hundred feet up the road, so if the tires weren’t noticeably flat, the man might drive off anyway and still get demolished.
Chest heaving, Mark took a step back and listened to the hiss of air escaping the tires. The sound reassured him but before he had time to congratulate his ingenuity, the owner of the car exited the bakery.
“Hey! What are you doing?” The man’s steps quickened as he rounded the back of his car.
Mark bolted back across the street and circled to the back of his own building, and didn’t stop until he was on the next block over. As he passed a Dumpster, he tossed the knife inside and eased his head around the corner to the sidewalk. Head cocked, he listened for sirens—either from the man reporting him or from someone reporting an accident.
He walked another six blocks in the opposite direction, worried that any moment a cop car would pull alongside the curb and arrest him. Geez, he was acting like an escaped murderer. He needed to just chill and get a grip on his nerves. When no cop car approached, he finally felt safe in heading back. Ambling along with his hands shoved in his pockets, he hoped he looked innocent, but he felt like he had the word ‘Vandal’ taped on front of his shirt like a nametag.
It had been about twenty minutes and when a tow truck passed him and stopped near where he thought the car had been parked, he let out a breath of relief. He hid in the alcove of an art supply store for a little while longer, allowing the tow truck time to haul the vehicle away.
When the coast was clear, he returned to his apartment and found the photographs on his kitchen counter still, only now they showed a double-parked truck—the very same one that had been in that spot last night.
With a whoop, he pumped his fist in the air. He had done it! He had changed the photo. His cheeks felt like they were going to split from the strain of his grin. Would the driver even know that Mark had saved his life? For a second, he felt a sense of loss. It would have been nice to have a little recognition, but in his dream, he had seen a car seat in the back of the car along with a few small toys. The man was a father—Mark was sure of it—and now he wouldn’t leave his child fatherless. That was worth it even if he was the only one who would ever know it.
* * *
After that first incredible save, Mark couldn’t resist using the camera every day. It was never a given that he would get a future photo, but that was half the draw. Some days, he developed the exact same photos that he had taken, but other days, a photo that didn’t belong would show up—sometimes more than one of the same incident. After studying the photos in the evening, he’d sleep, and the photos would come to life in his dreams. Day after day, he took the photos, and day after day, he made the saves. Like notches on a gun belt, he kept track, saving the photos of the ones he’d changed in a box under his bed. Someday maybe he’d tell someone about the camera, but for now, he kept it to himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share the secret—he did. The desire to tell someone was always coiled inside of him, ready to spring out, but as badly as he wanted to tell someone, he didn’t dare. What if someone stole it? He couldn’t bear to lose it, but he was sure that if news got out, it would be a target for theft. Who wouldn’t want a camera that showed the future?
Another fear was, even if he gave in to the temptation to show someone else, what if it didn’t work when he tried to demonstrate the power? He would look like a fool. His greatest fear was that the government would get a hold of it. He knew what they would do. They would tear it apart to find out how it worked. It would be studied and tested and meanwhile, people who might have been saved would die while they ran their damn tests. Nope. Sharing the secret wasn’t an option. At least not at this time.
A few months after the first save, Mark sat on the edge of his bed and studied the latest photograph. It showed a clerk at a gas station in the process of being robbed at gunpoint. In the next photo, the clerk was on the floor behind the counter in a puddle of blood. He had taken the pictures the day before and the corresponding dream was still fresh in his mind. Taking his notes with him, he moved into the kitchen and sat on the stool at the breakfast bar.
So far, most of his saves had involved accidents, not crimes. Could he prevent this? And if so, how? He didn’t own a gun and even if he did, he wasn’t about to get in a gunfight. He would probably do more damage than the criminal. No, he would have to notify the police about it. Somehow. His first challenge was nailing down the precinct where the robbery would take place. He pulled out the phone book and looked up the addresses, and picked out the precincts closest to the gas station. He stared at the numbers on the pad of paper, tapping the end of his pen against the pad. Now what? Just call them and report a robbery before it happened? They would either think he was involved or that he was a nutcase. The dream image of the murdered clerk popped into his mind’s eye. He would have to risk it. Better to be thought a nutcase than to carry the guilt of doing nothing and letting the woman die.
He called a precinct and tried to explain that he had overheard some man planning a rob
bery, but the person he spoke to transferred him to a detective. Just great. He had planned on delivering the tip to some random dispatcher.
“Detective Bishop speaking.”
“Uh, yeah—“, he broke off and cleared his throat. He hadn’t counted on speaking with a detective and wondered if he should just hang up and try to take care of it himself. His story was thin and wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny.
“I uh, I want to report a conversation that I overheard this morning. A guy was planning to rob a gas station at Lake Street and North Green.”
“Really?” The skepticism crackled through the line and almost bit him in the ear.
He shook off the nerves and kept his voice firm. “Yes, really.”
“Where were you when you overhead the conversation?”
“I was…I was at a bar.”
“What bar?”
His mind went blank. “Just some bar over on…on Division.”
“What block on Division?”
Mark stifled a groan of frustration. “I don’t know. Just a place on West Division.”
She sighed. “You don’t sound too sure of yourself. Were you drinking at the time?”
“Sure, I’d had a beer, but I wasn’t drunk if that’s what you’re asking.” Denying drinking would be suspicious, so he felt clever admitting to a beer.
“Okay. Well, give me the details. Time? A description of the person?”
Relieved to have the answers to these questions, he rattled off information on the man in the picture, right down to the brand of shoes he was wearing.
“You noticed his shoes?”
“Well…yeah. Once I heard the plan, I tried to take note of as much as I could to pass along.” He took a sip of his coffee, his mouth suddenly dry.
