A scientist picked up his new invention and handed it proudly to his colleague. She took it by the handle, raised the lenses to her eyes and looked through, tilting it from side to side a little, taking in the 3D image it created.
“Well, it’s good,” she pronounced, “But I’ve made something better.”
John was a genius, an inventor of some renown but he had the misfortune of having an even greater genius for a sister. Every time he showed Jenny something he had come up with, John was praised and then informed that she had already thought of it and created something better.
“You have a better image than my Stereoscope, dear sister?”
“Of course - this is but a child’s plaything, John. Come to my laboratory in two hours and I’ll show you.” And, as ever, with that, Jenny turned and walked from John’s laboratory and home through the bustling London streets.
Two hours later, John was standing looking up at a huge photograph of an exhibit in an empty gallery at the British Museum (Natural History)- a dinosaur skeleton. His sister handed him a pair of goggles and began to talk.
“You see, dear brother, a photograph is not just the reaction of a surface to light, it is the capturing of a single moment in time and space; and so, once I found the means to access that moment in complete fullness, I was able to create a means to develop a truly multi-dimensional photograph,” she said, waving at the enlarged picture.
“Imagine, John, being able to visit the British Museum, Natural History in this case, without the crowds! To see the statues, skeletons and books without bother! Well, here it is! This is how!
“Put those on,” Jenny urged, nodding at the goggles. “I’ve a pair too,” she added, removing them from a pocket.
Together the siblings donned their eyewear and looked up at the picture. Immediately it he could see it was a far greater quality 3D image than he’d accomplished. In fact it appeared as if an extension or alcove to the room. John walked from side to side watching in amazement and admiration as the picture moved.. “as if it were real..” he said, voicing his thoughts.
“Because it is,” announced Jenny, “come on!” And with that that she beckoned John on and walked into the picture. He followed, the same disbelief on his face that would appear when in that room.
While investigating the skeleton close up, John had a thought of a particular photograph. A chill ran down his spine and yet, with a sudden determination, he asked of Jenny, “Can I have one of these?”
As a child John walked to and from school alone through one of the spookiest parts of the city’s suburbs. On his route lay an alley that seemed to be dark throughout at all times of the day and year. Every day, morning and afternoon, John would speed up his walk as he went past that horrible place.
Always, though, he wished to be daring enough to go in. Jenny would, he knew, but he never could.
Once, though, just once, John had been a little bit daring. At fifteen, shortly after Jenny had bettered his attempt at creating a camera, John had taken his one with school and, on the way home, stopped at the alley, held up that camera and taken a picture.
Once developed, John kept it hidden, occasionally taking it out and daring to stare into the dark wondering what was in there, wishing he’d been brave enough to enter.
Well, now he could. Once Jenny had set up the apparatus in his laboratory, John set about finding the negative created a new, giant, print.
John stood at the entrance to the alley, resisting the urge to turn and run away as he had run past during his school days. He moved about, peering into the dark from different angles trying to make sense of it, trying to see if any light could get in and show him something. The stalling tactic got him nowhere, though, so he walked quickly into the alley instead.
It was as pitch dark within as John had always imagined it so he put out a hand to trace along the cold brick wall to his right. After a pace or two he did the same on the other side too. Onward he walked, his fingers feeling the way, his breath the only sound.
Before long John reached the end, instinctively predicting its appearance before smashing into the brick wall. Smiling, he turned to go back, pleased to have finally beat what had haunted his imagination for some twenty years.
“There’s nothing here,” he said to himself cheerily but before he could take the first step back toward his lab John was stopped by a rasping intake of breath.
Then a voice from the darkness ahead of him, a voice that began sounding awfully ancient yet seemed to become younger as it spoke, responded, “Isn’t there boy?”
The next day, while searching for her brother, Jenny took the same journey into the photograph, returning unharmed but with John’s body.
For the first time since hearing a certain story at school Jenny felt scared. She remembered the tales now, tales of an alley over by the boy’s school. The tale of a teacher who had locked girls in cupboards and left them there for days, a teacher who had also cooked girls in a kiln and eaten them for supper, a teacher who had eventually been expelled and imprisoned in that alley by the then headmistress, who the tales named as a witch.
Suddenly fearful, Jenny felt a cold run right through her before saying out loud, “Miss Gunness?” After a moment she added, under her breath, “John, what have we done?”
The response, a young woman’s voice, came from the far corner of the room: “Saved me.”
Written for the Light and Shade Challenge from the following picture prompts:
and
Thomas Marlowe
Note: I wrote the first section to go with the first picture but did not finish it in time. Which was fortunate, as the second picture, and challenge, allowed me to expand and extend the story, taking it in a completely different direction.
