Page 361 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

My sisters took to my hands, their smiles burning obedience
into the reserved bleakness, retraining its loyalties.
The objects of the room slowly came into focus,
gossamer structures melting out from the wincing, lightless
cold. Developer fluids, scissors, stop bath and fixer, strings
and clothespins, rubber gloves—a darkroom. My respect
for photography exploded when my fingers closed over a
picture clasped to a thin wire. The image within was . . .
alive. The object—or was it a subject? —moved beneath
my fingertips, pulsing, emitting life more vital than could
be conveyed through simple skin, but only by the soul itself.
The image overflowed me, rising beyond me, invading the
freezing blackness. Its horror was profound, painful. The
thing’s resulting scream invaded me. I could feel my family
flinching at the sound as it transferred itself into the bones
of their spirits, moving like a surge of electricity across one
conductor after the next. The sound leapt from my fingers,
racing across the hundreds of other photos hanging from
wires, each new print joining its scream with the next. The
chain of shrieks became a fire of blazing sound, burning
across everything, threatening to obliterate the world.
It happened before I could stop him. My father became
my hands, raising himself high, his voice an explosion.
“Enough!” He descended with searing desperation. The
air went white-hot. Thunder and scream rose into the air,
circling one another, hawks facing off. Then came silence,
the offspring of mutual annihilation. Next came oblivion.
Jack was waiting for me on the other side. “Hello, Vincent!
I was curious if I’d find you here. That awful Shepherd has
been attempting to dislodge me from my work to recover
some lost bauble or another, of all things. Naturally, with
my refusal to budge, I assumed he’d be calling upon you.”
I gleaned a few important points from his words. I was not
the Shepherd’s first choice for the effort, which might speak
to his confidence in my abilities. And I should have been
ashamed for succumbing to the Shepherd’s will so easily.
364 | Mark Anzalone