Our Invite to Write Challenge has come to a close, and now it is time to share the amazing works our participants submitted over the summer! We asked our writers to craft a story, telling us about their fantasy world. Stay tuned throughout the fall to read them all. Check out the first one below by Brett Sobaski!
A Familiar Affair
He had been shooting negatives all day. In the background he remembered the sights, the sounds, the smells and he removed the negatives from the camera.
He closed the door to the dark room and developed the negatives into photographs. He observed the photos as he looked at them in that dark space. He thought about what he would do better if he was to do all over again. Would he have used a different angle? Would he have been able to compliment the person in front of him if he made an adjustment? Was it the lightness or darkness that made the photo? He had heard about that a lot from his photography instructor. As he reflected on what he shot that day, what he had extracted from the negatives he thought much more about the subject of the film. The content. Even, the emotions in the images, in the moments. And as he observed the photographs, he relived the day. What moments on this roll of film brought him joy? What moments brought him sadness? Disappointment? Even dread. He thought twice about the prospect of taking some of those photos, reliving some of those moments another time. He thought to himself that he did not want to take some of those same style photos again. He loved that about photography. He was always searching for the perfect picture, the perfect image, knowing it was unattainable but an idea and a striving. He thought to himself, “I hope photography lives forever. I hope it lasts forever. I hope it goes on forever.” He wondered to himself if there would ever be anything in the world better than photography. What would be better than this? What could be better than this? He continued to wonder. He loved the way storytelling functioned in an image. He was biased but little was more magical than a perfect-like photograph. Even he as a photographer would get sick of looking at the same photograph and wanted to find new images, new matter, new subjects to capture on his camera.
He had won a Pulitzer Prize when he was younger for the amazing nude photo he took of the Playboy model that had been featured in the infamous magazine. He knew there was nothing better than a Pulitzer. Or a Playboy model.
He and her had shared that moment, so special behind the camera. He and her got married a number of years later. He admired her beauty and she loved being admired. They raised a number of admirable kids. Two kids to their shared name. They named their daughter Cinnamon and they named their son Thad. Thad was named after a swinger’s club in Southern California that was known for being a hot spot. The parents never told him that was what he was named after. Cinnamon was named after her mother’s stripper name from when her mother had been seventeen years old. Having kids the parents became more focused on what they taught their kids. What would the kids need to know as adults? And when was too young to start teaching them? What was healthy to eat. How to match an outfit. How to study for a test. When a good television show was on TV. How to get along with neighbors. What kind of music was quote unquote good. How to extract the morality from feature films that they watched at home as a family. How do parents teach their kids to overcome trauma? First, keep going she thought to herself. They all just needed to keep going and in that she meant to not give up. Have fun, enjoy life and just hang in there every day. Just keep pressing forward.
And that’s what they did as a family. They just made it up every day as they went along.
