Darkrooms by Ali McLafferty

We who work in darkrooms have a secret.

You’d never expect it of us; we are masters of monotony. We blank our faces and mute our bodies so that you forget us as soon as you leave. Take a moment now—Walgreens, Costco, Walmart—can you remember a single one of us?

We always seem to be hiding in a back room somewhere; our invisibility vexes you. You harbor a faint sense of dislike. You do not like to imagine us in a red-lit room with your image, watching it rising to the surface of a gray pool like a drowned body.

I promise we pull you so gently from the water, we hold you so lovingly in our hands.

Sometimes we stare at you for hours.

It is not what you think. We are not ogling the photo of you in that orange bathing suit, glistening with pool water. Or the boudoir shoot, your hair like dark syrup dripping down your spine.

We are seeking the lines.

Sometimes only one or two. Sometimes there are so many, a whole piece lights up like a spiderweb in the morning sun.

They’re always connecting families, of course. Married couples, best friends. But the ones connecting strangers fascinate us most. Two people connected across beaches quilted with towels, or at street parades roiling with bodies. We never know what type of connection it is, of course—love or hate, life or death. That’s why we study them so closely, seeking their faces in newspapers or on street corners.

Most of you come and go without knowing. But not you.

When you came in yesterday with that 20-year-old disposable camera, I feltit. Never before has a line pulled me.

Don’t leave. I know you don’t like me. I have seen too much of you growing up in 4×6 windows, I know too many of your secrets.

But I think you knew I’d find her.

She was like a ripe peach, pink, swollen with youth, ready to burst. The camera lens had captured her like Ariel in a cloven pine, sealing her up for twenty years.

Now see the line. It begins at the feathery trim of her blond bangs—connects to the rippled edge of a photo frame—flows around the scarlet bulge of a wine glass held by a smooth arm at a 45-degree angle—blends into a green stripe of a linen dress touched by a thigh clad in blue pinstripe—ends in the brim of a hat just exiting the frame.

I remember that night. She had been in a red car, he in a white. Together they twisted like a shattered candy cane. His hat had landed on her roof, still shaped to his head.

You’d almost miss him, lurking there in the back of the photo. A stranger captured through sheer accident. You’d almost miss him, unless you had my gift.

Or, of course, unless you were her sister.

Don’t leave. I have another to show you. Here’s me, standing on a street corner—and here’s you. Just your heel and the thick wave of your ponytail.

See the line?

Let me show you how it ends.

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ALI McLAFFERTY — Ali got her PhD in History and taught at UC Berkeley before moving to Austin, Texas, where she now teaches high school. Her work is forthcoming in The Forge, her short stories won 3rd place overall in the Writer’s Workout Writer’s Games, and her novel-in-progress was a finalist for Unleash Press’s WIP Prize. She’s also a gardener, mountain-biker, artist, and aspiring green witch. She is delighted to have both her writing and artwork featured in Flash Frog. 

Art by TINA V. CABRERA — Tina is a writer, artist, and teacher based in the PNW. She has published fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid works in print and online in journals such as Pleiades, Eclectica, Hobart, Quickly, Crack the Spine, and Big Bridge Magazine. Her creative nonfiction memoir The Former Things Have Passed Away was long-listed for the 2020 Steel Toe Prose Book Prize. Visit her writer and artist blog at http://tvcannyuncanny.com/