Long expose to follow the song's premise. But I kinda like this one.
I didn't know who took the picture,
Bethany said she got it from the yearbook office, but I was rather
fond of it. Most of the pictures of me and Danielle as a couple were
posed; be it in prom attire or jeans and t-shirts, we were facing the
camera and smiling.
This one though was nothing like that.
I wouldn't have been surprised if the photographer was trying to
taking a photo of something else, and a mistake in timing had
resulted in what Bethany showed me.
It was simple, me and Danielle walking
down the school hallway on the way to our lockers before class
started. Our hands were around eachother's waists, the sole reason I
had foregone a traditional backpack for a messenger bag.
“I want to use it for my senior art
project,” Bethany said. “I'm doing colored silhouettes of
students and teachers on the wall outside the gym. Would it be okay
if I use this pose of you and Danielle?”
“Sure,” I said, strangely honored
by the request. Bethany and I had the odd scheduling mystery of
sharing every math class since 7th grade, but we had never
been close. It was kinda cool to know that she had chosen me and my
girlfriend to be immortalized on the school walls.
Danielle was excited when I told her
about Bethany's project.
“That's awesome Chad! We make such a
cute couple, it's destined for art.”
She was so thrilled we changed our
route entering and leaving school to go past the wall and watch
Bethany's progress. It was slow going. First she projected the
images of all the silhouettes she wanted to paint, ten people in all,
and traced them with pencil. And then went over the pencil lines
with paint using a thin brush – green for guys and red for girls to
match the school colors. Then came the long process of filling in
the outlines.
Painting required a lot more space than
I anticipated, especially in the beginning where Bethany had to use
the projector. She couldn't work during high traffic periods: before
the first bell, between classes, and fifteen minutes after the
dismissal bell. During her art period she worked a little on the
images, but most of her work was during after school hours.
Danielle and I saw the greatest amount of difference between viewings
after school one day and the morning of the next.
Our silhouette was towards the end of
the wall, and Danielle and I had an ice cream bet as to when Bethany
would start on filling in our outlines. She guessed just before
Halloween, while I chose Thanksgiving, but finals were the next week
and we still hadn't seen a stoke in the center of our silhouettes.
“What gives?” I asked Bethany in
math during a review session. “You lost me a free ice cream.”
“Sorry, you'll just have to wait till
after Christmas break. It's no easy thing to do you know, and I have
to study for all my finials.”
Maybe Bethany didn't get any cool gifts
to play with, or her family was just so annoying she had to get away,
but the first day back at school the silhouettes were finished. Not
just the ones leading up to me and Danielle, but the pair afterwords
as well, a teacher chastising a student. The wall was finished.
Danielle squealed and took pictures
with her phone, both of the silhouettes and then us standing in the
same position on the wall. It was pretty cool to see the final
picture, seeing Danielle and I on the wall. The different gender
colors made it easy to see my hand around her waist, her head leaning
just a bit on my shoulder. I felt a little prideful, thought I
couldn't explain why. Not like it was my work.
I congratulated Bethany in class that
day and felt satisfied at her blush.
Now, I have pictures of the pair of us
all over my cellar shelter. Some of my parents too of course. They
never came home after that train wreck releasing chemicals into the
air. In the panic that followed, they most likely died.
The power is out, I can't charge my
phone, so I haven't heard from Danielle in two weeks. My hand-crank
radio still spills out instructions to not go out, and no matter how
much I think 'fuck it' and head to the door to drive to her house, I
pause at the windows.
There is no activity outside, but
plenty of carnage. The chemicals had caused people to hallucinate
their fears and people had turned on each other. There is an over
turned SUV in my front yard and the swollen dead body of a hanged
child in a tree down the street. The hallucinogen was still in the
air. Would I make it to Danielle's house? And if I did, would I hurt
her?
The last though always makes me go back
to the basement. To wait for a rescue I'm pretty sure isn't coming.
Despite the pictures of her, I can't
help but think back to Bethany's silhouettes. These picture will fade
eventually, but that paint won't. They might burn the town to purify
the area, the news said it was an option, once they knew everyone was
dead, and that image of the two of us standing in her living room
before homecoming sophomore year will curl and smoke and turn to ash.
But I'm pretty sure the school and it's painted walls will remain.
That's all that will be left of us,
those silhouettes. At least it's something.
That started out real sweet and turned quite sad. Great job.
ReplyDeleteOooh, I like this! Silhouettes has always been one of my favorite words, and I think a story based off of them would be awesome. :)
ReplyDelete