The Man, The Hat, and The Camera

On Spline street sits a shop, unlike the others that surround it. Rust has painted its door red; its bent-in roof threatens to cave in with every change of the wind. No one remembers it being built. No one remembers anything before it. It’s as if people in the neighbourhood have the same shared memory of this peculiar, four-walled brick building. The old woman who owns it is as bent as its roof. She had never been seen coming or going; a CLOSED or OPEN sign has never hung. Most stay clear of the shop, knowing all too well the strange items that line the dust-filled shelves. But like any place on this Earth, those who don’t know will always go into places they aren’t supposed to.

The man with the hat was on a short business trip when he happened upon the building. Looking for a newspaper stand to ease his early-morning cigarette cravings, he found himself inside the shop instead. No one who’s been inside its walls can ever recall walking through the door. The man with the hat was no different. The shop had a smell to it, like the corner of your grandmother’s cupboard in winter, which, as a child, you could never reach. It smells of age, of memories best left forgotten like the toys in a charity dumpster. The shop was quiet when he entered; no other customer in sight. He walked carefully through the aisles, his steps soundless. The man picked things up off the shelves as he went – an old broken car radio, a jar of used combs with one strand of hair wrapped through each point of teeth, a notebook filled with writing written backwards, a DD battery sewn into a scratched three-fingered baseball glove. But the man put back every item he touched, except an item on the second shelf from the front. Perhaps it looked like the least peculiar, as it rested upright beside a deck of cards where all the corners had been cut off. Perhaps that made the man pick it up and turn it over in his hand. Flat on his palm lay a black camera, its lens showing him his reflection. Maybe the man saw himself in the camera, that’s why he took it up to the counter. The exact amount was already out of his wallet, despite no items having any price tags.

The old woman behind the counter was writing in a book, out of sight from the man. Her hand stopped abruptly on the page. She looked up as if the man had yelled out her name. He involuntarily took a step back from the shock of grey hair and crystal eyes that pierced through his own. The man’s voice came out like a child had stepped into his shoes. ‘I’d like to buy this camera.’

The old woman stood, quicker than the man was expecting, and snatched the camera from his sweaty palm. Turning it once in her hand, her unnerving eyes ran over every inch of it with precision.

The woman stopped. She looked up at the man. ‘This camera comes with conditions.’

The man with the hat rolled his eyes. Slapping two bills into the woman’s hand, he grabbed the camera back. The old woman reached for him, curling a bony hand around his shoulder, pinning him in place.

‘Two conditions. Only two. If you follow them, this camera will grant you the most glorious pictures you’ve ever seen.’

‘And if I break them?’

The crystal eyes narrowed. ‘Break them, and you’ll be paying with more than just this.’ She motioned to his cash. ‘One. Never take photographs of the night. Two…keep it away from mirrors.’

The man with the hat nodded; he hurried from the shop. But, like a child when their parents’ backs are turned, how easily the mind forgets a warning. At first, the man listened. He took pictures in the light. Of buses and streets, people and trees, collecting the most magnificent photographs that made his eyes well with awe and wonder. But, as the light began to fade from sight, so too did the woman’s words of warning. Cast in the beauty of darkness, the city was too enticing for the man with the hat. He thought to take a picture of the night from his bathroom window. Leaning on his knees, one eye squinted, the other pressed to the camera. He saw it then, in the bathroom mirror, out the corner of his eye. The man with the hat was not alone. He held up the camera to be sure. Something was standing behind him. His last photo forgotten, he turned around quickly only to be met with a poorly tiled bathroom wall. No figure stood. Lifting his head to the bathroom mirror, convinced his eyes must be deceiving him. The shadow- made up of velvet darkness moved in the outline of the man. His last photo forgotten. The man with the hat’s tongue curled with fear to the roof of his mouth. The man turned back to the wall- a shadow stood. He took a shaky step backward, a last attempt at convincing himself the shadow was his own. The shadow remained like an unwashable stain on the bathroom tiles. It began to grow with each twitch of the man’s eyes. The man turned his back on his fear, willing the shadow away. The man with the hat counted to three; turning around quickly, he was met with a poorly tiled bathroom wall. No figure stood there.

Breathing out relief, the man lifted the camera back to his eyes, laughing off the old woman’s words. The sharp click of the camera was the last sound he heard before he was taken. His vision swam away from him; unseen hands latched their grip onto his sweaty skin.

The old woman had failed to tell the man of the camera’s original owner. Perhaps she never knew or, perhaps, she knew that secrets, once told, were no longer worthy.

But who am I, you may ask? Someone who knew of the story, or someone who saw the man with the hat taken? I am neither to you. No, my dear friend. I am the man behind the camera, the man who lives in the lens.

The man with the hat should have listened to the warnings. He should have left the camera be, collecting dust on the shop shelves. He was my company that night. I waited patiently for the rule to be broken, watching from the eye of the lens. I saw what he saw, the blurring lights, the blue skies, the human routine of capturing the things he wanted to keep. The man with that was not a hard man to figure out. No, not at all. As soon as he held what was once my own in his sweaty palm, I knew him well. He watched people, observing the way they lived briefly in his existence. Despite being tall, he walked with a stoop and shuffled his steps despite having two perfectly strong legs. No, the man with the hat wanted to be admired. He wanted to be seen. So he catalogued what he wanted with the click of the camera. I took him coldly into my arms that night when he broke the only rule that would have ever mattered in his short life. I whispered wonderful lies into his mind, showing him everything he could be, all that the world had to give him. I left him there, wrapped in a blanket of darkness while I took the body he left for me in the light of a cheap two-bedroom hotel room. I stood steadily in my new skin, turning his arms over and back in the light to get my grip right. I stooped my back for good measure- I remember the pathetic way he moved through the world. I smiled into the mirror. The man with the hat was trapped behind, giving him a small wave with his own body. I didn’t stay to listen to his pleas, his cries, his sorry’s. The man with that was still pounding on the mirror when I left- his hat firmly on my new head. The ecstasy of the night gave my body cover as I slipped away into darkness.