The Park Picture

My mom first noticed it when I was about 7 years old. We were at the park around the corner from my childhood home. I was playing on the monkey bars when my mom took my picture on an old Kodak disposable. Any child of the 90s will remember those old yellow bricks, the snap of the flash, the clicking of the cog as you turn the film to the next photo. You wouldn’t know what was in a picture until it was developed days later at your local drug store, a wild thought for the current generation living in instant gratification. I don’t even remember this day, this photo, or anything else. I just know it ruined my life.

Back then, that day at the park, I think my mom just wanted to document how triumphant I was. Looking at the picture today, you can see how happy I was in the moment, and how alive I felt. How naïve I was. It’s so silly how a moment that feels like nothing, that should have no lasting impact on someone’s life, can crumble any sense of security and understanding. A ripple in a pond that causes a tsunami destroying your way of life. Little did my mom know, that innocent picture at the park would change our lives forever.

On the surface, the picture looks like it belongs in a scrapbook – A happy snapshot of a great day at the park. But then you notice something so feint, so miniscule, so easy to overlook. To be honest my mom overlooked it for years.

I said she first noticed it when I was 7 years old, but looking back its clear pictures were tainted as far back as when I was 3. A family trip to the zoo was the earliest my mom was able to trace it when she sat down and combed through the family photos. Impossible to notice at the time without the evidence of photos throughout my life.

Back to the “Park Picture” as it has become known. It was in this photo my mother noticed a dark figure far off in the background near the tree line. We were in public, surrounded by people, so it should come as no surprise that someone would be caught in the background of the photo. It’s not like we rented out the park and were in a desolate area. Strangers are always being immortalized in photos of families they have never even met before. But this wasn’t someone, it was something and yet nothing. It was absence of light. It was malevolence. And it simply crept closer.

My mom began to keep track of the photos that were taken of me with a watchful eye. Every roll that was submitted to be developed featured the mass, and only in photos of me. Mom switched camera brands, and film types, even went to every drug store in the area and every single one showed the same black mass – even saying it was “black” still feels like giving it too much color.

Over a couple years, and under the close surveillance of my mother, she noticed it was getting bigger. More of the photo was being lost to something. Mom noticed it wasn’t just simply getting bigger though, it was getting closer to me. Mom cautioned me, without trying to scare me since I was only 9 years old at the time. While most kids my age were trying to make sense of 9/11 and why all the adults were so scared, I was trying to figure out why mom was afraid of cameras and said I wasn’t allowed to have my photo taken anymore.

From this moment on photos of me became extremely rare. I no longer had school photos taken. I was no longer allowed to take the team photo with the rest of the kids on the baseball team. I was becoming a teenager, and I didn’t understand what the problem was. I was rebellious, MySpace was starting to become popular, and I felt left out not being able to have my photo on my profile. Social media was new, and my generation was taking it by the horns. It really pissed me off that I couldn’t fully immerse myself in it like all my friends were. Then, when I was 14 my friend received a cool new digital camera for Christmas.

When I went over to his house, he showed me his camera by taking a quick shot of me as he opened the front door. The flash caught me off guard and I almost broke the camera out of instinct. When he looked at the picture he saw it, but didn’t take it for what it was. Instead, he razzed me for “breaking his camera.”

“Well, I guess we know now that my camera can only handle taking pictures of attractive people, only half of your photo even turned out.”

I tried to tell him that it’s just something that happens when photos are taken of me and it’s no big deal, but my mom freaks out about it and it’s pretty annoying. When you are a teenager parents always overreact to things.

Word spread and it became a party trick. Everyone would want to see how weird it was when my picture was taken. The darkness enveloped and closed in more and more each time. Every so often my face would distort and those always got the best reactions from everyone. Deep down though I was starting to get worried and could see why Mom was so cautious. I didn’t feel safe.

I was starting to become scared, and cameras of any sort seemed life-threatening. I stopped letting friends take my photo. I stopped even going to hang out with friends. I turned 18. I graduated high school. I didn’t go to graduation because there would be too many cameras. Mom died. I became a recluse. She was the only one who really understood and I took it for granted. I should have listened and trusted her earlier.

The last photo taken of me was 9 years ago. I was 22. I haven’t left the house since. I can’t trust anyone. There are too many cameras hanging from every light pole on the street. You can’t walk in front of a business without your picture being taken. And I can’t afford that. Not after what I saw.

The circumstances surrounding the photo aren’t important. I was 22. It was an extremely rare instance where friends managed to pull me out of the house. In return, I was drunk, very drunk. I was dumb. I took a selfie with a friend at a bar. The second I saw the photo appear on the screen afterward my stomach sank. A chill ran down my spine and I started to sweat but I was so cold. I was scared. I couldn’t breathe and I realized I could feel something sharp strongly holding my shoulder. I went to brush my friend's hand away from my shoulder when I realized it wasn’t there. But when I looked at the screen closer, I saw the darkness, the malevolence, the creeping violence that has been taking over my life was here, and it made contact.

I went home and I haven’t left since. My windows are covered. Five or more layers of tape cover anything even remotely resembling a camera lens. I shattered all the mirrors because I’m afraid of those now too. I’m afraid of anything that lets me see myself, because I’m terrified of what will reflect back at me.

By now I’m only provided company by my mother’s ashes and the occasional knock at the door from a delivery of the essentials that comes at the same time each week like clockwork. Without those deliveries I would die because I wouldn’t leave.

Today as I walked to the door to pick up my delivery, I noticed that the knock seemed different. It was lighter with one less knock. When you hear one person knock on your door for years you get used to the nuance, the sound, the repetition. It should have been an alarm. It should have been a warning. It should have been a reason not to open the door. As I opened the door and leaned down to grab my delivery, I made eye contact with someone new, holding their phone up at the bag of groceries my face was right next to. Then I heard it.