It had, for a long time, existed only in my memory. I saw it for a brief moment as a child, one of infinite images that existed in that flashing, whirling time. While the others grew dim and cobwebbed in my mind, it remained fresh.
Then I found it; discovered among the detritus gathered in a long and fruitful life. An image on old paper, a man and woman with taciturn expressions yet joined in an enternal embrace that belied their ages and that of the picture. His eyes were focused on her, and hers likewise and I imagined them to be the Romeo and Juliet of some age before sorrow had entered into the world. The faded background of the past lay in blurred monochromes behind them, an amorphous conglameration of the ancient and the recognizable (if antiquated).
I will never know their names. I will never know who they are, or how they lived, or if they loved as they did in that picture for all of their time in this world. The only clue is etched on the back of the photo in the fanciful script of a past era, faded and smudged with time.
"1912."
They have long since passed from here. Their memory may be forgotten by all that knew them.
They live on, embraced to each other. Forever.
2 comments:
This post had the same effect on me as you describe, triggering memories of a photograph I once saw of my grandmother (now deceased), with her first husband, before he died very young. She has never smiled in a photograph since.
Memories like that are extremely powerful. I wonder if someone would feel the same when they read your words in the distant future.
I sincerely thought it very crazy of me to make up lives and stories for total strangers whose pictures I see. Now I know am not.
This is a beautiful post Mahd, it gives me more reason to love photography, the way I do.
Thank you,
Fitèna
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