Tonight, Bronnie jumped up on the couch and put her head on her paws, looking up at me with her big, sad eyes.
"What are you doing?" she asked, as I pulled the quilt up a little further, covering my feet.
"Nothing." I said. But she knew I was lying.
"Come on, David. There's something wrong. I can always tell when there's something wrong. I sleep under your bed, for chrissake. You can't forge a tighter bond between man and hound."
"Well.. I don't know if I should tell you.. you might think I'm going a little crazy."
Bronnie smiled, twitching her ear softly.
"I already think you're crazy. You might as well tell me."
I shrugged, pointing at the mantlepiece.
"Look at that."
"Look at what?"
"The photo."
Bronnie squinted in the direction of my finger. In the distance, sitting proudly up on the mantlepiece above the fireplace, in our little house in Greensborough, was a photo. It was my mother, sat next to my grandmother, who peered groggily out of the frame.
"Do you see it? Look closely."
"It's a photo." Bronnie said, tilting her head slightly to the side.
"It's faded."
Bronnie rolled her eyes.
"Photos fade, David. There's nothing strange about that."
I rose and took the photo down, bringing it over to where we sat.
"Look closely. It's not just that it's faded. Can't you see?"
Bronnie peered at the picture, then her eyes grew wide.
"Only your grandma is faded." she said quietly. "I can barely see her."
"Exactly. Yet, Mum looks the same as always."
Bronnie gulped.
"It's got to be a freak. I'm sure that it is nothing to worry about. The photo must have been printed badly."
I shook my head.
"I don't think so. It's happening everywhere."
I stood and walked around the house, picking up a bunch of framed photographs. One from the kitchen, hanging on the wall. One from the stand in the hallways. All of them with Grandma.
Bronnie watched me closely as I sat down next to her, and laid the photos out in front of us.
"Look. See? It's the same everywhere."
And, sure enough, it was. A photo of my cousin and my grandma from her last Christmas - with her sad, lost face almost faded from view, leaving nothing on the print but a few wisps of colour, inside a white sihlouette. Our family, standing in their kitchen, were just as they were in 1985 - except for the familiar white sihlouette where my grandma once stood. And, sitting with my Mum in our back room, the same again - my mother's arm was draped around a white apparition, laced with flakes of colour where Grandma once sat.
"I don't know what to say." Bronnie breathed, shaking her head. "I've never seen anything like it."
"Neither have I."
We rose and wandered outside, sitting on the warm, wet grass of the back garden. I looked up, pointing.
"Look at the moon."
Bronnie looked, and smiled.
A beautiful, glistening crescent moon had risen gracefully into the sky over Greensborough, hanging in the cobalt blue background like a hooked jewel. And we sat there, with the flickering of our neighbours party lights behind us, staring quietly into the starless space.
"Grandma died two years ago - today." I said.
"Oh."
We didn't say anything for a while.
"I'm sorry." Bronnie finally muttered, pawing a stick.
"For what? You didn't kill her."
"I know. But, still. I'm sorry."
I shrugged.
"I've noticed it for a while. But, I didn't want to say anything. About the photos."
Bronnie nodded.
"After all," I continued, "I don't want to sound crazy. It's pretty weird, isn't it?"
"Sort of. I guess so."
I wrote about Grandma, on this very site last year, but that was a long time ago. A year is a lifetime, even though it will slip by in a snap of the fingers. Could it be two years already?
"Do you know what's strange about people dying?" I said, leaning back on my hands.
"What's that?"
"You think people only die the once. They don't. They die over and over and over again."
"How do you mean?"
I sighed.
"They die the first time. And then, as time passes, first their voice dies, then their body dies, then their face dies. In the end, it's like they were never born. There's nothing left of them. Just a white space in a photograph where they used to be."
Bronnie sniffled. "I never thought of it like that."
"I can't remember what she looked like with the same clarity. I think about it, and even though I knew her for years and years and years, it is harder and harder these days to conjure up a picture of her in my head. Memories are like icicles - and over time, the heat of your body simply melts them away."
A cloud bobbed gently through the sky, and Bronnie pointed at it.
"Look up there. What do you see in the clouds?" she asked, grinning.
I squinted, rubbing the lenses of my glasses with balled fists.
"I see a dragon. His jaws are open, and he's breathing fire."
Bronnie flinched. "I don't see that at all."
"Well, what do you see?"
"I see a devil, with horns and a fork. Can't you see him? Right there."
It's not that I didn't want to see it. I just couldn't. I saw my dragon, and that was that.
Bronnie shrugged. "It's funny how we can look at the same thing, but see totally different things, isn't it?"
"I guess it is."
We sat for a while.
"It's not fair, is it?" Bronnie exclaimed jarringly.
"What?"
"It's not fair that people leave the way they do. You put so much effort and energy into them, and they just up and vanish. One way or another."
She was right, of course.
"I suppose so, Bronnie. It's funny - I feel like this about a lot of people."
"You do?"
"Uh-huh. I used to have friends from uni that I was close to. They've all gone now, though. I think about them sometimes."
"Where did they go?"
I snorted. "Who knows? I think they just found me difficult to be around, eventually."
Bronnie rolled her eyes. "Surprise, surprise."
"Watch it." I growled, glaring at her. She giggled sheepishly.
"The point is - a lot of photos are fading. Of people I used to know. I can't say I like it very much. I miss people, sometimes."
Bronnie stood up, pawing a bug gently.
"Nothing stops pictures from fading, David. And nothing lasts forever - not friendships, nor relationships, nor people."
"I know that." I said, "I just don't think that it's fair."
"It isn't."
I reached over and began to scratch behind Bronnie's ears. She slumped downward and closed her eyes.
"Mmm. That's nice."
"I just wish there was a way I could fix it, Bronnie. I wish there was something I could do."
"Go and get a photo." Bronnie said dreamily, "Bring it out here."
"What for?"
"Just do it."
I shrugged, walking inside - up the steep, wooden steps, and beneath the decking, wrapped in blinking christmas lights. I returned with a photo of Grandma, faded and blotchy.
"Sit down." Bronnie said.
So, I sat down next to her, with the photo in my hands.
"Two years ago today, huh?"
I nodded.
"I can fix your photo for you."
"You can?" I said.
Bronnie nodded her head, reaching up and resting her chin on my knee.
She closed her eyes, and sighed deeply.
"Tell me about your Grandma."
I looked at her for a moment, opening my mouth to speak. But, I didn't know what to say.
And then, without even thinking, I did as I was told. I told her about what a funny, clever, passionate woman my Grandma was, and how sometimes - late at night - when nobody was around, I really missed her.
And as a beautiful crescent moon hung over Greensborough, in a cobalt sea of blue, we watched the photo being restored to colour.
Posted by David at January 3, 2006 09:31 PM | TrackBack