The Falsity of a Photograph

Summary: A young woman, meeting an untimely death, reflects on her life through the eyes of others, and the focus of a lens, finding herself displeased with the image.

Note: This story deals with matters of derealization, mental health struggles, and death.

It could have been a river to be crossed, a faceless man transporting souls across the waters. It could have been the hulking forms of dogs guarding a sifting bridge. It could have been a meadow of paradise, an infernal pit, a tomb of ice, a field of reeds. An endless feast after a glorious battle, towering pearly gates, the comforting embrace of nothingness.

Death could have been anything.

So why is it more of the same?

More of this…reality?

I was really hopeful for a cloaked skull man, to be honest.

Instead, I’m overwhelmed by the voices of those who claimed to know me, coming from every direction, in the tight, claustrophobic hallways of the place I once called my childhood home.

Words of mourning, apologies, and memories, all overlapping into a sick cacophony with no focus.

I see food on the table. Sweets and treats. Ones that might have been my favourite when I was young, a child. Ones that faded out of my life in adulthood, apart, of course, from obligatory family gatherings full of false memories and forced smiles. There, I would be pleasant, chewing down the treats that I had grown to associate with people pleasing routines and the bitter aftertaste of disappointment.

At least in life, I could chase the aftertaste with wine.

A wake.

My wake.

Even in death, the rituals of life carried on.

So, I walk deeper into the home. From the bright blue kitchen to the light brown walls of the tight hallway, past the somber face of the town’s local priest that I had met only once or twice in life, through the throng of people with no words left to say, sipping at drinks, and nipping at food in some attempt to remind oneself to be present.

Faces I don’t recognize, at my own damned wake.

“An event to appease the living, not to respect the dead,” A rich, deep voice cuts through the murmuring haze clear as day, ringing so loudly in my ears that I nearly wince.

I turn slowly to locate the source of the noise. There, standing so out of place between a glass cabinet of old teacups and a corner table of lilies – another lie, hydrangeas and orchids had always been my favourite – was a figure standing at least 7 feet tall. Black robes and a matching large black hat contrasted starkly with the light palette of the room. His head was bowed, and his clasped hands were the only part of him I can see, long, skeletal fingers interlacing with one another.

Cloaked skull man. At least I got something about death right.

“So, this,” I gesture, my arm floating through the figure of one of my second cousins, “this is death? More of the same?”

The man’s head raised, empty sockets meeting my gaze so surely that I knew he was looking at me, into me, through me. “This is a waiting room. A chance to reflect on your life before moving past it for good.”

“And I do that at my wake?”

“A place of remembrance, of memories, of stories.”

A sharp exhale escapes my nose. “And if any of them bothered to listen to each other, they’d realize very few of their stories seem to match the person they think themselves to be mourning.”

The skeletal man tilts his head. “You think yourself misunderstood in life?”

“I think myself a liar.”

The man says nothing, but it doesn’t stop me from moving towards the far end of the room, where a large screen hangs above the fireplace mantle. There, a slideshow plays – haphazardly put together, probably just a folder of images playing on repeat – of…me. I stand and watch image after image of myself, as a child, as a young teen, forced smiles on my face, discomfort strong in my eyes. The odd candid shot taken, no smile graces my face, only pointed focus. The darkness in my eyes only growing stronger in every passing year of stored images.

“I always hated pictures,” I speak softly. The skeletal man had made no indication that I wasn’t meant to be speaking – hell, he had told me to reflect – and so I directed my words to him with little care. “There’s probably not enough of me to fill 10 minutes, I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to put together a flippin’ Power Point.”

I point to the next image that floats by; a snapshot taken at my graduation, cheering in the arms of a bunch of girls in a bathroom. “I didn’t talk to half of those kids while I was in high school. I didn’t talk to a single one after. I came out after a piss and was dragged into it. Why two of them are at this thing talking about all our good times, I have no idea.”

The next image was a younger one of myself, sitting at a restaurant table with a few gift boxes and bags in front of me, that same rehearsed smile I learned far too young on my face. “Mom and Dad had a screaming match 2 hours before that picture, right after they decided to inform me I had to move away from everything I knew. I was a kid, I had no concept of moving and no control of my life. That crap affects you, back then. But they thought since it was my birthday, since I had presents, I would remember the presents and not anger. I couldn’t tell you about a single gift that I got that day. But thank god my aunts can remember what a bash my 8^th birthday was, and how cute and happy I was back then, right?”

Three more pictures flickered past – sitting at a restaurant beaming, screaming on some amusement park ride, dancing in the arms of my sister.

All I can do is stand in somber silence, realizing I don’t have a single concrete memory of being present in any of those moments.

A familiar stranger.

A liar with my face.

The deep voice booms from behind me, but I don’t jump. “The sight of yourself upsets you?”

“It’s proof,” I respond simply.

I sense more than see the cloaked figure joining my side.

“Of your lies?”

I nod, feeling my eyes become unfocused from my surroundings, no longer processing where I am, but retreating within my own mind.

Even death can’t keep me from my thoughts, it would seem.

Nor can it stop my mouth from spilling them.

“It’s the same reason I hated mirrors, really. That’s a perk of dying – I noticed I couldn’t see myself in the one in the hallway. But in life…you’re supposed to look at yourself and see…yourself. You. Who you are. It’s supposed to be familiar, comforting, or at the very least normal. But when I looked in the mirror, or a picture, I would always see a stranger. The same sort of confusion when you meet someone at a party that you swear you’ve met before, but something’s off and you can’t quite place them. Like someone had stolen my face, like I’m not who I think I am. It’s a reminder that everything people perceive me to be is a lie, an act, a dissonance that shifts from person to person, from memory to memory. Half of the pictures of me I don’t even remember where I was or what I was doing, I don’t remember who I was with or what I was thinking. People tell stories that I’m supposed to remember with fondness, and I had to act like I remembered them at all. Like I was present, like I was real. But I was never real, not really. I’ve always been just out of frame, a fly on the wall, a ghost in the background.”

I take in a sharp inhale, focusing back in on the images in disgust. Me in a prom dress, me laughing at a table of people, me wrapped in the arms of an uncle, arms crossed over my chest tightly. The same practiced smile. The same disconnected eyes.

“Not one of these was real for me. Not one of these wasn’t an act put on for others. But they’ll all use these to tell the fake story of my life, the story I crafted for them to tell. Not one of them will tell the real one.”

“A lot of anger, for just a collection of images,” the skeletal man’s voice came calmly, firmly, but free of any judgement.

“I’ve just always seen them as…pointless. People look at them like they’re the truth, and not filled with…lies.”

The skeletal man pauses for a moment, gazing upon the photographs as they slide past, one by one. “The representations of peoples’ memories are as inaccurate as the photographs they so desperately cherish. They cling to these frozen moments, and as the image fades, crumples, and stains with time, their recollection alters and falsifies from dreams, retellings, and perceptions.”

It was my turn to pause as his words sank in, passing from my ears to my head, settling downward through the depths of my chest.

“To appease the viewer and the taker, not to respect the object,” I mutter, looking around at the mourning faces of the room. “Like the wake.”

“Perhaps.”

To my right, a door opens that would normally lead me out to the small street my childhood home was located on. Only now, the scenery behind the door was a dark river amidst a field of stars.

“Your image is a stranger, your mind an enemy, your life a lie,” The skeletal man speaks, making his way to the door. He stops at the threshold before holding my gaze. “Are you prepared to be truthful in death?”

It’s not a question that requires much thought.

I could look to my family, to my friends. I could try to find my own gaze in a mirror. I could continue to watch the false narrative of my life through the lens of a camera.

Instead, I take a single, skeletal hand, and walk forward into darkness.