2084

“You know, I meant to tell you earlier back on the mountain, that old thing of yours could get you in trouble,” Meredith said as she tugged gently on either side of her salmon-colored zip-up sweatshirt to cover herself up.

She raised her eyebrows and smirked coyly. The dim warm light from the fire accentuated her dimples, each perfectly framed by her long red hair.

Matt lowered his Leica M6 slowly. He let the camera rest against his chest as the rainbow strap held it in place. He reached into the front pocket of his chore jacket and pulled out a gold rectangular tin.

“So much for that adventurous spirit,” Matt said.

Meredith shifted her weight in the foldable camping chair, bringing her knees up to her chest to nuzzle her face into them.

Matt knelt and used the fire to light a hand rolled cigarette he grabbed from the tin. He sucked deep, revealing two sharp cheekbones covered in stubble.

The pair sat with the sound of crickets and gentle pops from the fire filling the silence.

“I mean, you can’t blame me,” Meredith said. She had taken out a thin rectangular e-cigarette that had a dim red light on the end that shone every time she sucked.

“That one guy recently up north. They gave him 20 years for sharing hard copies of a video. Could you imagine what would have happened if it was a photo?”

Matt leaned back in his chair. He took a long drag, cocked his head back, and blew into the night sky. He closed his eyes. It had been 10 years since the Nationalist Party rose to power and passed a series of Faustian bargains. First, it was free internet for all for life so long as all forms of digital communication were monitored passively by the party. Then it was free news, books, audio, and video for all so long as everyone turned in their analog production hardware and literature. And then came the worst of all, a guaranteed yearly income of $100,000 for everyone 18 and older. The catch, no unauthorized creation of physical media without prior government authorization. The penalty: jail time and forfeiture of your guaranteed income. The laws had turned Americans into risk-averse sheep. They had also spurred the creation of hundreds of federal government contractors eager for a payday through hunting down the most ordinary physical media offenders.

“Matt? Did you hear me?”

He opened his eyes. The ash on his cigarette had grown.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said.

“Where’d you get this thing anyway?”

Meredith was standing behind him. She leaned over and slid her hand underneath the camera strap and gently massaged his chest while she breathed on his neck. The hairs on his arms stood up.

“It belonged to my uncle. He was a news photographer back in the mid-1980s up in Kentucky.”

The sound of a branch snapping in the distance startled Matt.

“Now who’s scared of a little adventure?” Meredith said.

She squeezed his chest and walked back in front of him. She stood for a moment with her back to him, the fire revealing the word “Calvin” written across the back of her tight yoga shorts. She held her arms up to her chest and craned her head back toward him slightly.

“Fine, just one,” she said.

She turned around and opened up her sweatshirt revealing a toned physique and white lace bralette along with a heart-shaped locket around her neck.

Matt’s mouth hung open. He was no stranger to seeing her like this considering they had been dating for over a year now but something just felt different. Maybe it was the clear night sky, the way the fire bounced off her olive skin. He sucked in his lower lip in pain as his neglected cigarette burned its way down to his fingers.

Meredith laughed.

Matt tossed the butt into the flames and grabbed his camera. He fiddled with the f-stop quickly, raised the camera, and snapped.

Meredith threw her sweatshirt on her chair and reached out her hand. He extended his, revealing a small “JG” in typewriter font tattooed on the inside of his veiny wrist. He held her hand as she guided him into their tent.

Four days had passed since their camping trip to Stone Mountain Park, just outside of Atlanta. What was once a bustling media metropolis had been decimated by the Nationalist Party's policies. The city was now the world’s largest carpet manufacturer. The business Matt worked for produced large area rugs. His job was to manage two large polyester tufting machines, which were oversized sewing machines capable of weaving the fabric incredibly fast and causing incredible damage to his hands on more than one occasion. Today was one of those days.

Matt punched his employee ID into the time card machine gingerly. Both his pointer fingers and his right middle finger were completely bandaged up, rendering his hand useless for the fingerprint reader. The cuts on his ring fingers were so deep, blood had started to seep through the bandages.

“Goodbye, Matt,” the time card machine muttered.

“So long,” Matt said cheerily for the first time in four years. Meredith was coming over for dinner.

Matt couldn’t contain his excitement during the 30-minute bike ride to his apartment in Inman Park. The community was once the city’s most sought-after neighborhood that had since become a haven for criminals.

The smell of the beef stew he left in his pressure cooker that morning smacked him in the face as he opened the door to his two-bedroom apartment. He hoisted his messenger bag onto the faded greed love seat, stripped off his blue chore jacket, and raised the front wheel of his bicycle onto the hook hanging from his ceiling near the door.

“Meow-meow, Lyla,” he said to the small gray cat brushing up against his leg.

Matt grabbed one of her red cat toys and tossed it across the living room. He sauntered over to the government-sanctioned digital music box on the coffee table. “Video Killed the Radio Star” began to play. He danced his way over to the kitchen. He unclipped both ends of the pressure cooker lid and gave the stew a stir.

There was a knock at the door.

“You’re early,” Matt said.

Meredith was smiling ear to ear in the doorway. All she had on was a blue polka dot shirtdress with three-inch wedges. Her hair was up in a high ponytail.

"You look, just, just, wow,” he said.

She kissed him on the cheek and shimmied her way inside.

“You said you had something special to show me, remember?” she said as she curtsied.

Matt smiled.

She regaled him with tales from the dentist office where she was a hygienist as they ate while Lyla rested on his lap, purring. He loved hearing about the wild things people would mutter as they sucked down nitrous oxide.

“So, what’s the big surprise, carpetbagger?” she said, grinning. Both their plates were empty.

Matt laughed.

He got up, rested Lyla on the loveseat, and motioned for Meredith to follow him.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

Meredith furrowed her brow and cocked her head, perplexed.

“Uh ok.”

He opened the squeaky door to his guest room and led her inside. He followed close behind and shut the door.

“Ok open them,” he said.

The room was pitch black, not even a sliver of light shone through along the bottom of the door.

“What’s this, Matthew?”

He grabbed a curtain and pulled it to the side revealing a room engulfed in dim red light. On the left side of the room were rows of clotheslines and clothespins holding photos. On the right side were rows of standing metal shelves full of dozens of film cameras, typewriters, ink, and film. And in the center was a large workbench filled with chemicals, beakers, tongs, and buckets, among other things.

“Oh my god,” she said, holding her hands up to her chest.

Matt walked slowly back to the workbench.

“Remember those photos I took at the park? I hung them up to develop this morning before I left for work. I wanted us to see them for the first time together,” he said.

Before he could turn around, she walked quickly toward him, grabbed his face with both his hands and planted a hard kiss on his lips.

“Thank you,” she said, resting her forehead on his.

He looked down and noticed her heart-shaped locket, unsure if she was wearing it before.

They walked over to the clothesline and Matt started taking down each photo one by one. He took the first photo and placed it in her hands. It was one he took of the park’s entrance sign. Then one of a downed tree. And another of the steam they stumbled across. He stared at her as she marveled at the stack of photos, mouth agape. He reached for the next one.

“I haven’t held real pictures in so long,” she said softly.

He slowly handed her the photo of her in her bralette next to the fire.

“Best for last,” he said.

She held the photo in her hands for a few moments then looked up at Matt. Her eyes narrowed before breaking away from his to a photo hanging behind him.

“You forgot one,” she said.

She reached behind Matt and yanked the photo off the clothesline.

“Don’t remember this one?” she said. The tone of her voice had changed.

She held the image up in front of Matt’s face. It showed him sleeping partially naked on the floor of the tent, lit by a series of flashlights. He looked up from the photo at her. His heart raced.

“I”m sorry, Matthew. I had to,” Meredith said.

She handed him the photo and dropped the rest of them on the floor. She rubbed the heart-shaped locket gently with a smile on her face. The door to the darkroom creaked open.