Through the Lens

** This post contains an excerpt from a larger piece **

The murphy bed was stuck in the down position. Joey didn’t mind the rusted hinge that kept it from folding back into the wall. He wasn’t going to ever have company anyway. The sheets were thin, as was the quilting on the top of the mattress. Joey could feel every spring on his back, as he laid motionless staring at the ceiling. Light crept in through tiny slits in the blinds. The rest of the room was dark.

Joey could feel his body sink down and melt into the mattress. His skin became a part of the quilting. His blood spiraled down the coils. Joey thought about how his parents would hate to see him like that. The fact that they were gone was exactly the reason he had so many days he couldn’t get out of bed. There was something deep down within his chest that kept pulling. Pulling him down through the mattress. Pulling him so hard that he couldn’t escape it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

A sudden beeping from the timer on his old kitchen oven broke the daze. His body and the mattress were two separate entities once again. Joey swung his feet onto the floor. He lurched over with his head in his hands. The oven timer kept beeping. Joey crossed the studio apartment with four short steps. He turned off the oven timer. The stovetop and oven had fallen into disrepair. Joey only used the timer.

He opened the bathroom door and was greeted by the strong stench of Rodinal--a combination both sterile and rancid. It always burned his nostrils a bit, when he was developing. Flicking the light switch flooded the bathroom with red. Joey unclipped several dried photos from the wire hanging above his shower curtain. A bird in a tree. A fountain. A woman sitting on a park bench. Photographs were all he had. He lived in the memories of others; he fantasized about what their stories were. His photos were a link to the past. A link to a time when he was not alone.