The Photographer in Search of Death

by Michael Mirolla

  At least, I said to myself, there won’t be anyone around to distract her, especially no children tugging at her arms, begging her to play with them or fix their booboos. But it made little difference. Perhaps the fault lies with me. Perhaps I should learn to swim. A child can do it, why can’t you? After trying to coax me in vain into the water with a promise she wouldn’t let me sink, she leapt up in a fury and threw herself at the nearest wave, uttering words I won’t repeat. “You’ll hurt yourself on a rock,” I whispered. “One of these days, you’ll do yourself damage.” But I didn’t follow her in. I felt I’d made enough concessions just removing my clothes. I did regret, however, not having brought a flashlight. For it was much too dark to read, especially the fine print on the patent applications and instruction manuals.

  When she re-emerged from the water, she announced that she was no longer angry at me and that we should do this more often. Her wet body stank horribly, as if someone had just pried open a rotten clam. Casually, she took off her bathing suit and lay down beside me, flicking water into my face. Come on, she said, massaging her breasts. I concentrated on the thick, one-roomed castle before me. She stood up, pulling me up with her. I waited a few moments, then sat down again. What is one supposed to do? Follow? Images of a daytime beach where a long line of children weaves behind her like a multicoloured anaconda. Only poisonous. Infinitely more poisonous. She sighed and dressed. You’re hopeless, she said. Let’s go. The finishing touch was our stumbling into another couple further down the beach in the final throes of sexual collusion, their bellies slapping wetly, backs arched at impossible angles, the suck-a-suck of wet sand helping to drown their rabid cries. They didn’t even stop to let us by, even though we practically stepped over them. I glanced back in awe; she with what I imagined was envy.

  E. Mr. Loki asked me today if I liked children. I was about to answer when he told me not to bother. Answers, he said, are always lies. I puzzled over that for a while and decided he was right. I would have lied. Then he asked if I believed in children per se or were they merely perennial dwarfs and midgets who created each other through some alchemy of innocence while the rest of us were born adults – already guilty and useless? I pointed to the girl circling in the water and smiled. He understood. I told him he didn’t really understand. You’re right, he said. Beneath the understanding there’s always another layer. No, I said, there really was nothing to understand. There were no layers. Just a thick surface coating that penetrated deeper and deeper into things till they vanished.

  You’re neurotic, he said. I’m not neurotic. The things I’m not afraid of, I despise. He asked what I liked. I said I liked neurotics. But only the kind met in books. A real live neurotic muttering and crawling along chipped walls and cobblestone streets would only unnerve me, would make me incapable of action. As, for that matter, do normal people. Well then, he said, making his point like a lawyer, what kind of a relationship do you have with that girl? Another smile. Relationship? Perhaps a barely tolerable one. Or was it that I wished no one else to have her? Balanced on a dull knife-edge that faked emotion on both sides. With my machine? Splendid. Couldn’t be better. It never failed, never said no, never booked off sick, never made me have ugly feelings, never laughed. Never decided it was time for a swim. Seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? A machine satisfying a human being? Mr. Loki didn’t answer, simply picking up a fistful of sand and throwing it into the air.

  F. It happened. We had an argument. More precisely, she had an argument. She told me she was sick and tired of swallowing my moral disapproval for something as innocent and harmless as leading 10-year-olds by the hand. There was no satisfying me. And, furthermore, she could no longer take my silence as she swam out. I was a cold brutal non-entity with a scar for a soul. There was no denying she was right. Perhaps simply a cold brutal non-entity as I didn’t believe in souls. An apology was in order. That I didn’t offer one was simply a reflection of the enjoyment I got from listening to her. She ripped the magazine from my hands and hurled it into the sand. When that didn’t satisfy her, she started to tear it apart page by page. Specifications for perpetual motion machines floated on the scummy sea. Finally, when that got no reaction (I was still too fascinated), she swore and threw herself into the water.

  Mr. Loki, standing behind me the whole time, said girls really don’t understand the printed page. They read books but don’t fully accept them – even though they’d soon be the last repository of literacy in the world. I was in no mood for a philosophic discussion. He talked to himself for a few minutes more and then fell silent. The beach smelled of oil, cheese, soggy paper, monstrous inventions—

  What could I do but melt under that sun? Construct an image? Yes, get to constructing then. The crowd moved like a wasp nest towards the commotion in the water. The lifeguard was dragging something towards the shore – a sack, a piece of driftwood, a body. Someone shouted that a child had almost drowned, had been saved at the last moment by a young lady. I knew in my heart who that “young lady” was. Errands of mercy! Let the little bas–– boys drown!

  A few hands in the crowd pointed in my direction and then everyone turned to look at me. The people parted. I saw her at that moment lying on the beach. It had been the other way around. She was the one who almost drowned. Saved by her short-eared child-lover? Not true! A blatant untruth! I saw myself rising in a blur of anguish, smile on my face, reaching down to drown him, to take him by those pathetic quasi-ears and slowly lower his deformed head into the water, feeling him thrash beneath me like an animal about to be slaughtered. Oh, the exquisite joy, the raw naked flash of power searing through my flesh. The thought quickly passed. I hadn’t the courage. I could as much drown him as save her. There was no point in helping. Or even thinking about it. She would simply have fallen down again smack in the middle of the street. I mean, water.

  Mr. Loki tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. She lay on the beach, her bathing cap removed, a strand of hair across her mouth. The lifeguard brushed the hair aside and, pinching her nostrils, brought his mouth over hers. Several of the bystanders, seeing I wouldn’t approach, came towards me instead. As soon as I realized their intention, I stood up and walked off in the other direction. They yelled at me, but I knew them not. I was a stranger to the beach. Mr. Loki followed me, cackling insanely, throwing his hat high into the air and allowing it to sink back onto his head. Fool. Why don’t you rush over to her, gasp out your tender emotions, ask worried questions about her health, clasp her sweet face between your hands, implore the Lord that he might spare her, promise Him anything for her life, promise to marry her after her first gasping breath? No, instead I found myself up against the front door of the little red schoolhouse, the empty little red schoolhouse, the never-occupied little red schoolhouse. My trousers were at my feet. Mr. Loki was kneeling down before me. Or it may have been the other way around.

  What I remember:

  What I remember: No, enclosed in this pale, lightless room since that day, I’ve never seen her again. Mr. Loki waited outside the door for a while, telling me stories about deserted cities and their slow reversion to jungle, the vines pushing up through the concrete. Here, let me relate one of them for you: “Rigg was a vegetarian of the first order. He would eat nothing that had anything to do with meat. When he was young, his parents attributed this to a passing fancy he’d outgrow at puberty. To prepare him, they made it a point to mix chunks of meat into the cereal gruel he preferred. Unbeknown to them, he never ate these mixtures, sniffing them out carefully and then slipping them to the ragged, bellows-chested dogs that wandered about the camp. Puberty came and went. During the initiation rites, Rigg was pinned to the earth while raw meat was forced down his throat. He almost choked on his vomit, spewing the pieces high into the air. The rest of the initiates moved away. This re-enforced his decision to scorn whatever society offered. He avoided the opportunity to take part in the cyclic battles with neighbours; he turned down intimations and invitations of love (from both sexes); he
shunned the political processes. The danger of such choices is obvious. Rigg’s community was built on a basis of tolerance and goodwill, much more so than any modern society. However, there are limits. Already, many took the opportunity to spit on him as they passed. And even his parents were losing their natural affection for him. After all, what would happen when they died? How would he be able to carry out his filial obligations, the obligations that allowed them to pass into the spirit world? The rubber band describing the relation between Rigg and his society stretched to its breaking point and snapped the day the village was attacked by a group of barbaric pale-faced marauders who raped and pillaged while Rigg sat there, idiotic grin on his face, contemplating the problems of perspective and depth of field. As his mother lay on the ground, recovering her strength from the combined assaults of a dozen or so warriors, his father came up quietly behind him and, with one clean blow, lopped off his head. The next day, the whole village – or what remained of it – celebrated, feasting on some of the best meat ever – tender, juicy and unspoiled by the previous consumption of flesh.”

  That was several days ago. I’ve heard nothing from the old man since. Tell me another, Mr. Loki, I said. I like your stories. No answer. Okay, then. Okay. Just go take a look behind your red schoolhouse, your precious schoolhouse. Go on. There’s a little surprise for you. Still no response. Perhaps he, too, has abandoned me.

  Yesterday, a letter was slipped under my door. Even though unsigned, I assume it was from her. It was filled with ‘Ahs’ and ‘Ohs’ and ‘I regrets.’ Even little drops that resembled tears but probably were judicious sprinklings of perfumed water. The P.S. informed me that this person had made the decision of a lifetime: “Oh, farewell. I’ve spent too much time thinking only of myself. Now, I’m off to help save the swollen-bellied children of the Third World.” Indeed.

  I presume my machine is lost as well. Someone else – a one-armed man perhaps – has taken my place, stroking it under that one swaying light bulb, oiling its essential parts, making sure it performs up to its exacting standards. Or perhaps simply abusing it. In any case, I’ve lost it forever. All because of a human being. And those insidious little creatures with life and hope and the ability to swim. But calmness is all. In any case, who wants to swim out? Only a madman.

  You’ll help me:

  You’ll help me. Yes? Take time off from your own machine-tending to pay me a visit? I’m waiting at this moment for you. The knife is outside my door. It’s the long thin one in case there are others – necessarily false ones which may have been placed there to confuse you. I must warn you, however, that I’ll be ready for you. I’ll have an identical blade on me. But you can still surprise me. Sure, you can. How? you ask. Well, why not…yes, why not disguise yourself? Disguises are fun – and practical, too. But, quick now, as what? There are so many things, an infinite number of things, one could become with the proper attitude and attire. As a…as a…as a writer? Too obvious. Too symbolic. A killer, then? No, no. Too stylized and impractical. Why would I let a killer freely into the room? Of course, of course. I have it now! You, my anonymous friend, my fellow machine-tender, you must pin back your ears, slick your hair, throw out your cynicism and…and…and…disguise yourself…as a…as a…as a child!

  That’ll do.

  Yes, in this dim place of disappearances and dark-hued rainbows, of lunar lakes and velvet machinery, of a light that never reaches me, that’ll most certainly do.

  BANDAGES

  Maybe it’s only your imagination – it has been acting up of late – but it seems that more and more people on the street are sporting bandages. Some have very tiny ones, more like patches really or see-through Band-Aids; others are covered in great big swaths, wound round and round their arms. Or their chests. Or their heads.

  The first thing you do is to look around for signs of war. War, you know from past experience and TV/Internet/YouTube footage, has the tendency to cause a flowery blossoming of bandages, a veritable explosion, many with untidy splotches of blood threatening to seep through. But, though news of invasions, suicide bombings, genocide, and wholesale death and destruction fills the international airwaves, all the wars and mass killing are a long distance off – at least for the time being. In your immediate vicinity, in the local post-yuppie neighbourhood that you patrol, peace and sunshine, love and conventional snobbery prevail. Oh sure, there are the occasional gangland slaying attempts, baseball bat attacks by jealous wives/lovers and, once in a long while, a shoot-’em-up armed robbery. But that wouldn’t be enough to account for the proliferation of bandages on the street. They even start showing up at the chic terraces and swank cafés where the customers sit posing like wax statues that would most definitely melt under direct light – or, at least, direct questioning.

  “Bandage? What bandage?” the slinky woman at the table next to yours says when you finally get up the nerve to hint at her mode of dress. For a moment she looks about in alarm, fluttering her long-lashed eyelids, then laughs and goes back to sipping her cinnamon decaf frappo cappo.

  “Oh, you mean this” – pointing to the peach-coloured gauze wrapped loosely around her head. “I like the style, you know. It’s in, the hurt look. Kinda vulnerable and innocent. The Japanese invented it, I think. Or maybe I saw it on a runway in Milan. Yes, that’s it. The Rumble in Rwanda Night on the Town. All the models wore this marvellous refugee clothing.”

  “No, darling,” the equally slinky man across from her chimes in. “It was that guy Khadaffi. Remember? After the Americans bombed him? Or Saddam? No, no. Now I remember. Bin Laden.”

  So, that’s it. Like everything else, it’s merely a matter of fashion and taste, of élan and style, perhaps tied in with the notion that it isn’t too healthy to appear too healthy these days. What with strapping young fellows just itching to send messages of explosive impact.

  Or is that it, really?

  “Fashion!” the old man on the park bench bellows when it’s suggested he is right in style – à la mode – with the large filthy bandage he has wrapped around his left arm. “What’s it bloody well got to do with fashion? Do you think I enjoy walking around with this pus-spewing wound that won’t heal? And for which the doctors can do not a bloody thing? Except to say it’s the result of growing old, a result of long-ago torture, a result of watching my wife being raped by half-a-dozen animals pretending to be soldiers. Eh, young man? Answer me that. Do you think it’s fashionable to have to change the dressing twice daily, to have to turn my face away from my own flesh and blood? Here, you wanna see it? You wanna see this fashion, as you call it? Here, have a look.”

  And, all the while, under the green shade and the peaceful twittering of birds and children, the old man is busy unravelling his increasingly caked covering. With every layer the old man takes off, the bloody yellowish spot becomes more noticeable, larger in size, more frightening. You sense it is time to move away, to back out of the park – before you too are thrown into his nightmarish world.

  “I’ll show you fashion,” the old man screams as he suddenly tears after you, the bandage flapping in the wind like a bird of prey. “Stop! Stop that man! I want to show him something. He won’t let me show it to him. Stop! He’s shirking his responsibilities! I want him to be my witness. I want the world to remember.”

  You escape into an alley, all out of breath, hiding behind a huge pile of rubbish, some of it – judging by the scent and consistency – from the hospital across the way. From there, you see the old man rush by, now waving a completely bandage-free arm. Arm, did I say? More like a gnarled branch than a human limb.

  So, it isn’t all fashion. There are actually some people out there who are hurt, wounded, not whole. Victims. Of war? Torture? Personal vendettas? Ancient family feuds? Runaway tractor trailers? And they wear the bandages to keep the hurt from spreading, from tumbling out into the street and just lying there. Or maybe flopping about obscenely at the end of some jagged flesh.

  And you learn to tell the fashionables fr
om the truly hurt. Not that it’s always easy, mind you. A person could go from fashionable to hurt in a matter of seconds, so that a chiffon headdressing for the avant-garde gallery opening might quickly turn into a life-saving tourniquet when the homemade bomb explodes (dissident, scorned, misunderstood, minimalist, gallery-lacking artists being especially ferocious).

  Of course, the reverse isn’t as likely but there are cases of the genuinely ill or injured disguising their hurt with fashion accessories. Or continuing to wear the bandages long after the hurting is over. Anything to keep the attention they’ve so painfully earned. Or not to draw the attention of those strapping young men in their buttoned-up ski jackets.

  And once the strangeness of all-wrapped-up people wears off, you begin to think less and less of it till it becomes routine to see the streets filled with partial mummies. Oh, you still suffer from the occasional startle, such as the time an acrobat falls from a tree, tan-coloured bandages around both legs and chest, and exclaims: “I’m telling you it’s the atmosphere; it’s the acid rain. It drops on you out of the sky and where it strikes you it sizzles and burns and eats away the flesh.” But, despite being dated by the use of “acid rain” rather than “climate change,” that’s to be expected.

  As is the lecture on “How to Cover Your Psychic Scars” by a self-styled “Post-Doctoral Professor of Neurocognitive Linguistics.” It turns out to be the same old thing really with the healing and bandage metaphors writ large across the blackboard and a soft-spoken man in a bald wig explaining how the modern world could not possibly save itself as it is bleeding internally. Bleeding from a huge gash few even notice. And how the wrappings are only stop-gap measures, perhaps not even covering the right wounds, etc., etc.