by Amy Cross
There's a faint ripple of laughter from my fellow students. I lean forward, squinting a little as I try to get a better view of this guy.
"Here's an image I took in Nigeria," he continues, pressing a button on his laptop. "This was about ten years ago, in the north of the country."
Behind him, a black-and-white photo appears on the projection board, showing a terrified woman running past the camera. Her face looks torn, as if she's been beaten, and it's clear that whatever she's running from, it's something that has inspired true fear in her heart. The whole room falls silent for a moment as we're given time to contemplate the image. No-one seems to know quite how to react, and there are some nervous glances among my fellow students.
"It's a very powerful image," Denise says, as if she feels the need to make sure that we all understand how we should be responding.
"What you can't see," Mark continues after a few seconds, "is the gunman who was chasing her. I couldn't get him in the frame. It was a very spur-of-the-moment image. I'd been in a small town, taking photos of water pump installations, when I heard the woman screaming. It was probably an incredibly foolish and dangerous thing to do, but I went to see what was happening. My instinctive reaction was to raise the camera and take a photo, and that decision has always haunted me. But by the time I took the photo, the gun had already been fired. In fact, if you look at the right-hand-side of the image, you can see the faintest blur." He pauses for effect. "That's the bullet."
The silence in the room is palpable now. We all know that we're staring at an image of the final second of that woman's life.
"It's my theory," he adds, "that the gunman pulled the trigger at the exact same moment that I hit the button on my camera to take this photo. By the time the aperture opened, the bullet had almost reached its target, and within a fraction of a second the woman was dead. I suppose it would be somehow symbolic if I told you that her blood sprayed onto the camera itself, but that didn't happen. Perhaps it should, though. By the time I lowered the camera and realized what had just happened, the gunman had come over to check that the woman was dead. He kicked her body over, and then he turned to me, and..."
He pauses.
"What do you think happened next?"
Silence.
"Come on," he continues. "Someone must have a guess. This guy knew I'd just photographed him murdering an unarmed woman. I was standing there, with just a camera in my hands, completely defenseless. There was no-one around who was going to help me. So what do you think the gunman did next?"
Again, silence.
"I'll give you a clue," he adds. "He'd definitely noticed me. I wasn't hiding, and I certainly didn't have armed guards with me. I guess you could say I was very naive being out there without protection, but this was the best part of a decade ago, when I was barely in my twenties. I thought I was invincible."
"Come on," Denise says after a moment, clearly a little embarrassed by the fact that no-one has made a suggestion yet. "Someone must have a guess."
"I'll give you another clue," Mark continues. "He didn't kill me."
Nervous laughter fills the room.
"He threatened you," someone calls out. "Like, with his gun. He threatened to shoot you if you showed the picture to anyone."
"No," Mark says with a faint smile. "Thankfully, that's not what he did. Try again."
"He ran away!" someone else suggests.
"No," Mark continues, "he didn't run away."
"He asked to see the photo?" asks another voice.
"No," Mark says. "He didn't ask to see the photo." He waits for another suggestion. "Anyone else got any ideas?" he asks. "I'll be honest with you, I ask this question every time I speak to students, and no-one has ever guessed the right answer. When I tell them, they always smile, but they never guess."
As the other students start offering various guesses, I find myself unable to stop staring at the image on the screen. It's hard to believe that the faint blur on one side of the picture is a bullet, and that less than a second later the woman was dead. For a moment, I feel almost as if I'm being drawn into the image, as if I'm imagining what it must have been like to have been the one standing in that Nigerian town, staring through a viewfinder and watching as a woman was killed. Finally, feeling a strange sense of nausea in the pit of my stomach, I get to my feet and hurry toward the door at the back of the room.
"Kate!" Denise calls out. "Are you okay?"
Once I'm out in the corridor, I hurry along to the bathroom and finally lock myself in one of the stalls. I take a series of deep breaths, but something deep in my body seems to be very wrong. Lifting the lid of the toilet, I kneel and stare down into the water, and somehow the smell of the bleach makes me feel a little better. I don't know what it was about that photo, but it seemed to eat away at me and slip into my soul, and now it seems to be a part of me. I just don't understand how other people can look at images and not feel the same way.
It's as if there's something wrong with everyone else.
Today
Suddenly the room seems darker and quieter, and Dagwood is gone.
Someone is pacing about nearby, but I can't turn my head to look. I can hear footsteps, though, and a voice muttering on the other side of the room. I try so hard to turn my eyeballs to the right, eventually they start to hurt. The footsteps come closer for a moment and the muttering becomes louder, and I become aware of someone moving around behind me.
I try to speak, but it's as if my mouth no longer exists.
"This isn't how it was supposed to be," the voice says suddenly.
Seconds later, a figure shuffles into view and walks over to the nearby workbench. From behind, I can already recognize him as the same figure that appeared in some of my photos. It's Amin Bell, and he's muttering away to himself as he leans over the workbench, his hunched back bulging beneath a tattered gray business suit. For a moment, he seems preoccupied by something on the bench, but finally he turns and stares at me with wide, bulging eyes.
"Can you hear me?" he asks, before putting the tips of his fingers in his mouth. After a moment, I realize that he's biting his nails, and as he hurries over and leans close to stare at me, he tears of a strip of fingernail and flicks it to the floor. "Give me some kind of sign," he continues, sounding nervous and agitated.
I try to say something, but I still can't find my mouth.
Leaning over me, he seems to be examining the hole in my scalp. As the fabric of his jacket brushes against my face, I smell tobacco and freshly-cut wood. For a moment, I'm reminded of something that happened when I was much younger; I was standing in my father's workshop and...
My father's workshop...
The memory is in my mind, but it's scrunched up and I can't find the edges.
My father's workshop...
"The human brain is a marvelous thing," Amin Bell continues, still leaning over me. "No-one understands it fully, and if anyone says they do, they're either lying or they're so ignorant, they've allowed themselves to believe that they've solved a puzzle that's -"
I wait for him to finish.
"Interesting," he adds. "They removed a lot of material around the edges of the wound. Sometimes I wonder if this guy maybe knows what he's doing after all. I guess he was worried about infection, but he's really gone to town, almost as if he's desperate to make sure that something comes out of there... or gets in. Then again, I guess that's what he wants us all to think, isn't it? All these fly-by-night doctors are very good at making themselves seem professional, but when push comes to shove, can they really perform miracles?"
He crouches in front of me and stares straight at my face. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, seem to be peering into my soul, and although I want to push him away, all I can do is wait as his hot, foul-smelling breath fills my nostrils.
"Why did you let them do this to you?" he asks. "I've seen you before, haven't I? You were taking photographs of me. Don't try to deny it, I remember your face. You were stumbling around in the dark, h
oping to get a shot of me, and then later in your darkroom you'd stare at the images as they developed and hope... The bulb would flash and I'd try to hide, but you just kept coming. Always in churches, wasn't it? That's where you found me. Most people wouldn't have even noticed, but you wanted to distract yourself from the reality of your impending death. You were so goddamn desperate from the start, weren't you?"
Again, I try to speak, and this time I feel as if I'm getting closer. My lips move, but no words come out.
"You've fallen in with the wrong people," he continues. "The devil has a smooth tongue and he can persuade anyone, even someone who's supposed to be smart, that black is white, or right is wrong, or up is down. You get the idea. I heard what he said about me, and it's lies, all of it. The thing you have to remember, though, is that..." He pauses. "Here's the thing about pure evil," he says after a moment. "It has to hide its form, or it becomes infinitely horrifying. Whatever they tell you about me, they're lying. Do you understand? They're lying."
"You're going to be fine," Dagwood's voice says suddenly, and although I can't see him, I can feel someone squeezing my hand. It's as if he's here but not here at the same time, and I'm not certain but I think someone has fiddling with the hole in my skull, breaking away new pieces of bone and... It's hard to stay focused, and I'm worried that the gaps between my thoughts are getting longer.
"Who -" I manage to say.
"Who?" Amin Bell asks. "I don't know what you want. Why did you let them cut your head open? Huh? Some kind of misplaced faith in the medicine of yesteryear? Are you a goddamn fool? There's a reason people don't go around drilling holes in their heads anymore. Then again, I guess desperation is common among those who fear they're going to die soon. Some of them take herbal pills, others visit faith healers, and you let a bunch of savages start carving your body up. It's all the same in the end, though, isn't it?"
"They cured me," I reply.
"You really think so?"
"I can feel it."
"Are you sure?"
"It's gone," I continue, even though I'm aware that I probably sound naive. "I swear, it's gone..."
"Well, maybe..." He pauses. "Right or wrong. Life and death. These things are almost interchangeable. Almost..." His voice trails off for a moment. "It's a shame you lost that book. It would have explained everything eventually, but..." Another pause, as if he's desperately trying to think of a way to explain things to me. "You'll see me again," he adds. "All this bullshit about splitting your head open, it's just their way of distracting you from the truth. Don't let your fear of death cloud your judgment. It's coming, you know."
"What is?" I ask.
"The thing I've been trying to hold back."
"What?"
He smiles.
"You are going to die," he says after a moment. "Maybe not how and when you think, but soon. There's no escaping it. I can see your entire life right now, right in front of me, and there's a hell of a lot more in the past than the future. You're almost at the end, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's so nearly over for you." He smiles. "Oh, and the Devil is definitely around, but he's better at hiding than you could possibly imagine."
I open my mouth to ask what he means, but instead I make the mistake of blinking again.
Twenty-three years ago
"Are you okay?"
Glancing over my shoulder, I see that Mark Harris is standing outside the library, smoking a cigarette. I guess I must have walked right past him without noticing.
"Sorry," he adds with a faint smile. "You were in my lecture earlier, right? I noticed you running out near the beginning. I hope it wasn't anything I said."
"No," I reply, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. "I just... I was sick."
"You didn't make a suggestion," he continues. "Everyone else came up with an idea about what the gunman did once he'd shot the woman in the photo, but you left before you could offer something."
"I..." I pause for a moment. "I have no idea."
He takes a long drag on his cigarette. "This guy had just murdered a woman in cold blood," he says after a moment, fixing me with a calm, measured stare. "I'd caught it on camera, and she wasn't the first person he'd killed. Hell, he was known throughout the region as a cold-blooded bastard with a tendency to shoot anyone who even looked at him the wrong way. I mean, he really was evil. I hesitate to use that word about a human being, but in this case it seems appropriate. You could see it in his eyes. I barely even had time to think, but I remember feeling, as I lowered the camera and we made eye contact, that I was about to become his latest victim."
I wait for him to continue.
"Obviously that didn't happen," he adds with a faint smile. "Do you know what he did? He swung his gun over his shoulder, smoothed down the creases on the front of his shirt, and then he took off his cap and fixed his hair. And then... he asked me to take a photo of him. He stood there, smiling like a young boy having his first school photo, and he waited while I took the photo. Then he smiled, thanked me, and wrote his address on a piece of paper. He said he wanted a copy. And then he turned and walked away." He takes another drag on the cigarette. "It was by far the creepiest thing that's ever happened to me."
"Did you send it?" I ask.
"The photo?" He nods. "I developed that particular roll of film a few weeks later while I was staying in Jos. The picture of the gunman was pretty good; not my best work, but not bad either. I made an extra copy, slid it into an envelope, and wrote the guy's address on the front before posting it. I have no idea if he received it, or what he thought of it, but yeah, I sent it. Maybe I shouldn't have indulged him, but somehow I felt obliged. I swear, though, when that photo was being developed the first time, I almost expected to see the Devil's face. It was the one and only time I've ever photographed someone who I felt had pure evil in their heart."
Although I can tell that he's waiting for me to say something, my mind is blank. I just want to get into the library, but I know I should make some kind of comment.
"I'm here for a few weeks," he continues, stubbing his cigarette out on the wall before dropping it into the trash. "I hope you feel better in time for my next lecture. I've seen your fellow students' work and frankly, it was all garbage. Maybe I can see your work some time and you can rescue the reputation of this college. Next week's project is a self-portrait. It'll be good to see what you can bring to the table."
Once he's headed inside, I pause for a moment, hoping to let him get far enough ahead so that I don't accidentally bump into him again. I've always avoided taking a self-portrait, but now I guess I don't have any choice. Making my way into the library, I try to tell myself that everything's going to be okay, but in the pit of my stomach there's a growing feeling that I'm being watched. Finally, convinced that someone's standing right behind me, I turn to look.
Nothing.
Today
Opening my eyes again, I realize that everything has changed. My whole body is trembling and I'm staring up at some kind of fabric, and after a moment I turn to see that I'm in the back seat of a car.
"It's okay," Dagwood says from the driver's seat. "You can sleep if you want. We're still about half an hour from your apartment."
"I..." Pausing, I stare out the window and see that we're heading back to the city. For a few seconds, nothing makes sense and I can barely even remember who I am. I blink a couple of times, and finally a set of vague impressions start to blossom in my mind. "What happened?" I ask. "Where are you taking me?"
He smiles. "You're suffering from intermittent memory loss," he says. "It's a very common side-effect of the procedure. Don't worry, it'll pass, but you might be a little confused for a while. I'll stay with you until you can cope on your own. It might take a few hours, maybe even a week before the healing process is over, but you'll see a gradual improvement. You're already a lot better than you were yesterday."
"My head," I reply, reaching up and running my fingers through my hair until I reach the bald spot, which see
ms to have begun to grow over with a layer of stubble. After a moment, I realize that I can feel a faint ridge, as if the skin is healing.
"Don't pick at the scab," he says suddenly.
I run my fingers along a piece of crusty skin.
"It's been three weeks since the operation," he continues, watching me in the rear-view mirror. "Three weeks of rest and recovery, mainly, but Dr. Mammone was also very careful to ensure that there was no risk of infection. As you can imagine, that's one of the main dangers with an operation of this type, but fortunately there are some modern methods that can be very useful. Alongside the leeches, of course." He pauses. "You don't remember any of it, do you?"
"Any of what?" I ask, still struggling to pull my thoughts together.
"You've been staying with us at the facility," he continues. "You spent a lot of time sleeping, but you were up and about for a while too. We talked, we discussed the situation, Dr. Mammone told you about some of the other procedures that he carries out from time to time. You started to become very interested in the way that the hospital works, but it was difficult to get anything done since..." He pauses. "Well, to be honest, Kate, every morning you'd wake up and have no memory of the previous day. It became a little frustrating after a while, because we had to explain everything over and over again. Some mornings you were easier to persuade than others. You panicked occasionally, and you even tried to escape at one point. For your own safety, we had to come after you and force you to stay with us. It wasn't very easy for any of us, but we got there in the end."
