In Camera

16 pages from 39 

A weak and tentative sun had made its appearance some two hours earlier but mist still clung to the early morning sky. It dissipated slowly across the awakening city below it, descending to merge with the murmur of traffic which had been growing steadily to meet this new day. On a street corner an ungainly double-decker bus broke out of the flow of traffic, paused at the kerb-side, disgorged some passengers and in a cloud of diesel fumes lumbered off. From the dispersing group on the pavement a large, stout figure detached itself and strode purposefully ahead passing closed shop fronts, head bent against a chill wind blowing up from the dark waters of the Firth of Forth. The man thrust both hands into the pockets of his heavy overcoat and crossed over the road. Fumbling in a pocket, he approached a doorway. As he unlocked it he thought absently to himself, "A cold morning for the time of year," this every-day remark on the vagaries of the weather was not unusual as mornings were rare when it was not 'cool'.
He entered and made his way through to the back, switched on a light, filled the kettle and plugged it in, switched out the light, retraced his steps out through the door locking it behind him, turned the street corner and, as had been his habit for the last ten years, bought the same newspaper. His bachelor ways were set firm and had been unmolested by any change for some time now. At the door once again he glanced up at the shop front. Above him the sign read, ROBERT HUNTER. PHOTOGRAPHER; a bold, simple, precise statement.
Mr. Robert Hunter, who now stood hesitating before the portals of a once flourishing business - still the owner, holding on grimly - liked to think of his place in society as somewhere between the minister and the doctor, a prey and a service to the great general public. At least that had been his vision some years ago; now he cared less. He had been abused by the changing whims in taste and fashion over the last twenty five, or more than he could remember, years. He knew that his terms were out of date and his old-fashioned approach had made his business suffer; he had definite plans to sell out in the near, though indefinite future, before everything gave way underneath his feet. His hair was greying and his face had grown lined with the worry, or age more likely, he knew secretly. Of late he had noticed a paleness in his features but that he had put down to too many Scottish winters. A typical native son, some would have said, though he never wore the kilt. This summer he hoped the tourist trade would boost his flagging sales and that the weather would hold just enough for some of the lucrative marriages he had on his books. Reputed as being 'a bit of a character' he had difficulties keeping staff for long and generally worked alone, preferring it that way. No help was to be hired this year; even though the demand from students in the nearby college, with its, to his mind, rather dubious photographic courses, had been quite high. He took little interest in the students that came to see him vaunting their capabilities and know-how. They hoped for the glamour but faced with the realities of the business they usually backed off. He was looking for someone serious with some capital to take the place off his hands ... But not just yet.
Hunter bent down for his mail, he thought he heard his back creak and waited before straightening. The letters had lain scattered on the floor, delivered as usual some hours before the shop was opened. As he leaned on the counter it crossed his mind that he had actually never seen his postman. This passing thought left him perplexed for some reason. A package caught his eye, the rest of the delivery he recognised as bills and circulars. He put everything on the counter which blocked the front shop from the small back studio. There was no rush today, yesterday had been quiet as well, he remembered. And the other days, well, they took care of themselves. It was the wrong time of the year for a flood of customers he reassured himself as he went off to make his tea.
On quiet mornings like this he could persuade himself that he was ready for anything. The door was open - figuratively speaking - and he was in business. He sipped his tea and grunted comments over the newspaper whilst waiting. A little later, undisturbed until then by any customers, he went through his meagre mail. The package carelessly put aside earlier proved interesting, the rest was filed or dropped into the bin. From some unknown source and for no reason at all he had received two rolls of 35 mm colour transparency film. All that could be gleaned from the sparse information supplied was the speed rating for the film and the processing instructions; development by user himself or by any established laboratory, he read. No brand name was marked and he could find no return address. The envelope was plain white with his name typed on it but nothing else, not even a postage stamp. Further investigation was interrupted by the opening of the shop door and he swept the films up and placed them in the cool store behind the counter.
As the day progressed the curious packet with its films was forgotten. Weeks went by, the summer season began, the work load increased enough to keep him busy and the films lay unused, though he would often come across them. Over the months, although some opportunities arose, he refrained from trying the untested film. Once he was tempted but the contract itself grew in importance to such an extent that he had to switch to a larger format film.
The short summer had ended and cold winds had blown the last of the tourists away when one of the regular accounts he still managed to hold came up with a job. It was something that could have been handled internally but somehow had been given to Hunter. A straight forward affair; it had been delivered one afternoon; photographing small water colour reproductions in 35 mm for projection. He had put this diversion, as he liked to call his 'wee' jobs, aside to be done during a quiet evening, for the museum had not stipulated a time limit.
Outside the pool of light on one of the small paintings the studio was dark and quiet, the only noise the ticking of a large clock, its luminous dials suspended on the wall above Hunter's head. Years of processing films had left a faint acidic smell in the air, an odour which sometimes hung around Hunter himself. He worked mechanically, arranging the modelling lights, checking the readings and making adjustments to his camera. Having done this type of work so many times before, his actions were brisk and precise. He had found the films he had overlooked so often and the camera was loaded with a 24 exposure roll and the first painting was set up under the twin heads of his flash. Finally, with preparations prior to the shooting concluded, cable release in hand, he was ready to begin on the first painting. There was the normal 'pop' of the flashes, a tremendous surge of light energy and Hunter, who had turned away from the set during the flash, bent back again over his camera to change the aperture and wind on the film. It was a few seconds before he realised that the painting he had just photographed was no longer there. Slightly bewildered, he looked around, bent down, examined the floor but found nothing there. Not seeing very well, he put on the main lights but even under their fluorescent glare he was still unable to locate the small painting. There seemed to be no conceivable reason for this disappearing trick and he put it down to a lack of concentration on his part. He wondered for a moment if there had been a painting under the lights in the first place, yet when he counted them one was missing. Probably put aside somewhere else he finally convinced himself. The only course left, was to continue with the others and search the premises later in case one had been overlooked. Switching off the main lights he ran through his photographic check list again and placed a small painting under the flash modelling lights. Slight adjustments were made in the focusing and this time he kept his eyes on the set during the exposure. The power of the flash was of such a short duration, in the region of one ten thousandths of a second, that the object bathed in so much energy appears to 'disappear'. In fact the eye, unable to adjust to so much light in that instant of time, is temporally blinded. When after those seconds of blindness, Hunter could see again, he was dumbfounded to find 'nothing' where the picture should have been. He peered closely at the area, rubbed his eyes, put out his hand but encountered only air. It took a further half hour of searching before an idea came to him. The thought of trying to explain the one or two missing pictures - he was now not sure how many - worried him and he hoped to come up with a reasonable explanation with the experiment he was about to initiate.
From around the studio and the laboratory, rummaging in corners and waste bins, he produced several empty yellow film boxes. These he put under the lights, focused and fired. The boxes 'disappeared'! Shocked and disbelieving, he sat down in the corner of the room facing the set. Was he going mad? The stress of the last few weeks, had it perhaps unhinged his mind ...? The fear of a breakdown, cracking up ...? What exactly was going on? The objects had vanished somewhere. Where? The film? Was it the film then? Where had it come from? He was almost sure the strange events in his studio were linked to the film he had loaded into his camera. There hardly seemed to be any other way of interpreting what had happened.
In the front shop, lights full on, he searched in the vain hope of finding the package which had arrived those months ago with the film in it. But after such a length of time it had been cleared out and the only remaining evidence was the other film. He went to look for it but it yielded nothing more except film speed and processing instructions written on the outside of the canister. It struck him once again that it had been a strange way of promoting a new product. For a moment he was tempted to open the film canister in the dark room, to feel around inside for ... For what? He was not sure. He would certainly not be able to see anything without fogging the film. He looked out into the street in the evening light and saw himself and the interior of the shop reflected in the window. People went by, lights flashed indistinctly. A phantom world, only half visible, was all he could make out. That's what it was of course, he thought to himself. He was hallucinating. This train of thought was the most disquieting and to disprove it he determined there and then to shoot the whole film under varying conditions, develop it himself and find the cause of the 'disappearances'. He returned to the darkened studio some minutes later with an array of objects - books, pamphlets, an old camera, bottles of chemicals, several pens and some second-hand filters and all these he dumped on the table beside the lit set. Switching on the overhead fluorescent lighting he searched the room thoroughly again but found nothing that could have affected events in such a way as to make solid objects vanish.
Outside on the quiet street there was little activity and anyone who passed took no notice of the late lighting in the shop. When Hunter had looked over the entire premises again and satisfied himself that no one was lurking in a corner, however implausible that seemed, the lights went out.
He did not find his answer that evening. Each item under the lights disappeared - metal, paper or glass - and after 14 exposures he stopped. All the objects were gone. He had watched from all angles, even found a pair of dark glasses to try to witness the actual dissolution into 'nothingness'. Frustrated and perplexed he decided to continue in the morning outside in daylight, without the electronic flash. There was really no sense in processing the film until it had been fully tested under all manner of conditions he persuaded himself. Leaving everything as it stood he locked up and, with the problem weighing heavily on his mind, went in search of a bus home.
He had tried to forget that days strange events but on entering the premises the following morning after a rather sleepless night and seeing the evidence or more correctly no evidence, Hunter could only believe that what had happened the evening before had been real and no hallucination. After considering his position, there was no cup of tea or paper that morning, he locked the shop, and camera in hand, went over to the nearby park where he hoped to conclude the experiment. At this time of the morning the still misty park, a large flat meadow dotted with trees and shrubs and traversed by narrow empty roads, had its deserted corners. Occasionally someone, or some group, crossed it to an early start at work but they remained too distant and probably too drowsy at this early hour, to be interested in a solitary photographer.
Hunter's breath vaporised in front of him and from where he stood he could hear, above the occasional bird cry, the pulse of traffic on the edges of the park. In the distance to the north, above the rooftops, on the skyline, he caught a hazy glimpse of the castle perched on its rock. Through the trees he could just make out a few buildings as he surveyed the area looking for a suitable 'subject'. The damp green grass bent underfoot as he moved about, his steps hesitant. He was worried and felt a little foolish. Worried that what he was on the point of undertaking would not work and foolish at the same time because the situation seemed so absurd. It lacked any rational explanation and he could imagine pointing the camera at a distant object and ... "And what?" he asked himself out loud. Where would such an idea lead to?
The part of the park in which he was standing was not particularly inspiring, and looking further afield, he spotted a bench removed far enough from the sight of anyone passing that it would cause little or no excitement should it 'disappear'. He went across to it, examined it and then if only to reassure himself of its reality, sat down on it. He waited for about 15 minutes before there was sufficient light for the experiment to proceed.
The technical problems posed by the low level of lighting in the park that morning were not insurmountable. In fact, as he looked through the viewfinder it gave the scene a more mysterious feeling. The camera stored all the information and he chose the combination of shutter speed and aperture he wanted. With some doubt as to what he was actually doing, Hunter framed the bench tightly in the viewfinder. As he was looking down on the subject there was no horizon to worry about and little depth of field needed. A green bench on a green background. He pressed the shutter release button ..., and the bench was gone! He looked round quickly in apprehension and slight embarrassment. No one was near. Cautiously Hunter went over to where the bench 'had been'. He walked round it, through it and stopped in front of it, or rather in front of the space that the bench had just a moment ago occupied.
"It works, by gum it does, it works," he said tilting the camera up to his face and looking into the lens. "I don't know how but you're in there somewhere. Aye, but does it only work for me? Supposing I'm the only one not to see where everything's ... gone?"
He still doubted the evidence before his eyes. Something had to be photographed which everyone could see before it 'disappeared'. But not here in this isolated part of the park. He remembered a spot, bordering road and park, the boarded up ruin of a building, a shell of a place surrounded by shrubs, an eyesore to all who passed it, rarely in use anymore.
"Certainly no loss to the community," he said out loud. The problem would be how to do it without being seen. Whatever had to be done had to be done surreptitiously, he thought, so that the author, if it worked of course, would not be found out. Why? He was not sure, but it seemed wiser that way.
He crossed the park to the spot he had chosen where, at the side of the road, he found a suitably hidden angle and waited for a break in the traffic. He pre-focused the camera and set it to automatic with a fast shutter speed priority and when the moment arrived he brought it up to his eye quickly and fired. He turned and walked away immediately, not wanting to be the first to see ... or not to see.
For some seconds there was no reaction in the street but in the growing noise and confusion that followed he looked round to where the small building ... had been. The chaos around him went unheard, unseen, and he stood in the swelling, pushing crowd amazed at what he had done. Bushes and trees were sliced neatly away and in the space between was ... nothing, grey nothingness. People brushed by him shouting, the traffic came to a halt, blocking the road, but Hunter took no notice and slipped away back to the safety of his shop. It crossed his mind later that there might have been someone behind or perhaps inside the place when it had vanished; this appeared rather unlikely, and in his excitement, he was not greatly concerned.
He closed early that day and took the camera and the second roll of film home to plan his next move, or at least to try and work out what had happened, if that was possible. He had nothing organised for the coming evenings, no visitors, no late photographic commissions or receptions. His cleaning lady had been through the house a few days before so there would be no interruptions should he want to experiment at home. His brother and his brood were not expected; no one was expected; one sister was in Skye the other somewhere else ... not like the old days ... he remembered. He shrugged his shoulders, irritated at this sentimental breach. There were other more important matters to be dealt with he told himself.

Sixteen frames had been shot which left 8 and he wanted to expose more of the film, but not to finish it by wasting it. He was sure now that it was the film in the camera that had provoked the extraordinary events, somehow it had become sensitive to the 'physical' as well as the light spectrum, and it would be interesting, he told himself, to see how what was captured was put back together in the film. The evening papers carried the story of the 'invisible ruins' but called it a prank if a somewhat elaborate one. Hunter smiled to himself as he read the report.
Two days after the incident in the park, towards midday, having reached no satisfactory conclusions, a great deal of the time spent in front of the camera just staring at it, Hunter, now sufficiently rested after the previous day's agitation, returned to his shop. A pile of mail was on the floor to greet him and, remembering that first package of film, he went through his letters carefully but found nothing of interest. There had been a faint hope, he had imagined, of some sort of contact. It had undoubtedly not been reported widely enough, he thought, and remembered that neither television nor radio had mentioned the incident. He was slightly intrigued by this. After all it was 'interesting', he thought to himself. It was rare that such things happened. Or was it, he wondered. He put the camera and the film in the safe in the studio office and tried to think what to do next. The morning was quiet and curiosity finally sent him out to the park a few hours later. There he strode around apparently without purpose, manoeuvring himself finally to the spot where the bench had been. It had not reappeared and he felt some satisfaction at this, though he was not sure why. The place where he had taken his second shot had been cordoned off and what seemed to be an investigation was underway. It was difficult to make anything of it as it was surrounded by a barricade. There were people moving about inside but what they were doing was not evident. On the street a small crowd had gathered, drawn by the story in the press no doubt, he thought, their numbers hardly warranting the two police officers and squad car. He was tempted to go over and ask some questions but instead turned away and, with hands in pockets, ambled back to the shop. He was on his way indoors, clutching the sandwich he had bought for his lunch, when he spotted the cat. This half-wild creature, a street veteran, he fed on the rare occasions it deigned to visit him. The cat followed him slowly inside and he shut the door to the street and put up his 'CLOSED' sign.
It was cold inside and the shop front looked bare, lacking the lustre of his competitors' premises. He carried stock but not enough to attract the eye and everything had a rather worn look about it. He had promised himself to change the window display but he could not remember when. All in good time was the phrase he often used. There were the new digital cameras to order, but he was wary of them. He had a few in the window and he had made an effort of understanding the way they functioned when trying to sell one but it was just another technical revolution to come to grips with, like the computer his sister had insisted he should have. For the accounts. It sat cold and unused in his little office at the back of the shop. His accountant did his accounts as he always had. There was no need to launch into home accountancy this late, he had never cared for it anyway. Shrugging his shoulders he went into the back studio. He sat down at his small table and looked over at the set under the flash. He rubbed his chin and neck for some moments wondering what to do and it was the cat's movements and mewing that brought him out of his reverie. He found some milk, poured it out for the cat, put on the kettle and sat down in a corner of the studio to eat his lunch. He was watching the cat drinking the milk when it occurred to him that as yet he had not photographed a living creature. All the objects that had disappeared up until now had been inanimate and he had not witnessed, certainly not closely, something living vanish. And there, there before him on the studio floor he had the perfect specimen. The idea appeared sound but the cat would have nothing to do with it. Even with everything ready and the animal under the lights he was not quick enough and it jumped away to hide in some part of the studio. Slightly exasperated at the failure of his plan he opened the studio door. The cat bounded into the shop area and when he unlocked the street door the animal ran off to its freedom without a backward glance. Hunter was staring ahead of him, musing on the incident, when at his side he heard,
"Do you do passport photos?"
The question was obviously addressed at him; there was no one else nearby. An elderly woman was smiling up at him when he turned.
"Yes," he replied, and to add weight to this rather brief reply he continued, "Of course we do. Please," and ushered her in. As he shut the door he checked that the 'CLOSED' sign was still in position. Whether he had genuinely nothing else in mind but to complete the passport photo session or to proceed with a living experiment was, in the ensuing drama, a lost and unanswered question, not worth speculating on. The little, old lady who was in no hurry perched on her stool, and as if given the stage proceeded to recount her life story. Hunter murmured comments, smiled where appropriate and gave instructions when necessary, whilst his inner self toyed with an idea which had been growing ever since she had entered the premises. He would catch snatches of phrases."... a nurse, my daughter ... Australia. Going down to see them. Haven't seen them in ages." Others tripped out, Hunter put them together as well as he could. Then the photography finished, he broke into her monologue by asking whether she could help him in a little experiment, just the time for the passport photos to dry. It would mean a change of lighting and of position, he explained but would not take up much of her valuable time. She consented readily and the changeover, positioning the new lights and changing the camera, was done quickly. When he finally took the light reading and had positioned her Hunter felt committed. He hesitated just briefly. '"If it doesn't work no harm will have been done"', he thought and he smiled at his aged model. '" Then again ..."'. The old lady, rather overwhelmed by the attention and the apparent seriousness of the affair, had grown quiet.
"It's a new type of film," Hunter explained rather weakly. "Just relax," he said, smiling and put his eye to the camera.
"Ready?" he asked and without waiting for confirmation pressed the shutter release cable. There was the usual 'pop' of the flashes and a glare of light. With his hand still holding the cable release, crouched behind the camera, unable to move, Hunter stared aghast at the immobile torso of the woman. The talking had certainly stopped, for good. Where her head should have been was an empty space. For a moment the arms that had lain on her lap moved upwards as if seeking something then they quivered and fell at her side. The body became still, hands crossed on knees, feet together. At any moment Hunter expected gouts of blood to come bursting out of the severed body, but nothing happened.
He stood mesmerised by the spectacle then carefully walked round and switched on the main studio lights. It was a macabre sight and Hunter was both fascinated and repulsed as he circled the remains of the woman. The rest would have to be removed, he thought, scratching his chin in worry at the idea of touching the truncated torso.
At first he wondered where he could hide the body but hesitated even approaching what seemed to him as he looked closely, the slightly twitching cadaver, or what was left of it. He realised quickly enough that the best and only way of removing the evidence would be by photographing it. In his haste and nervousness, he missed the feet which danced and twitched on the floor. He cursed himself for his stupidity, and for the waste of film, as he tried to focus on them. He had 5 frames left when the old lady was 'gone' and he stood some moments in the quiet studio wondering what to do. It appeared easy, well, at least a simple thing to do, there was no proof of ... anything really. Surely with the 5 shots left he could do something a little more ... Spectacular? Why? he asked himself. Why not? he shrugged. He could not explain this turn of events. He could not explain anything. How was such a thing was happening? And why him? Who had left the film? Perhaps ..? A practical joke! No. No. Something more spectacular was needed to prove that it was no joke. He toyed with the idea. It jumped around in his head. But what was in it for him in fact? Fame? "Doubtful?" he asked out loud as he walked around the studio. In the end he disregarded the questions, putting them aside to answer some other time. It was certainly more exciting than those unrewarding years he had traversed when his enthusiasm had given way to that of marked delusion with the way everything had 'turned out'. It was temptation with no regard for the consequences, a road which could only lead to disaster if he stopped to think about it, but, there again, he thought; there was still an element of doubt. And the film had not been processed. Perhaps this reversed everything, perhaps, but he could not see how. He felt a need to continue, suddenly greedy for the excitement, for another chance to exploit this extraordinary phenomenon which had come his way. He wished no one harm, there was no suggestion of vengeance, he was no psychopath, even though he admitted quietly to himself it did inconvenience those who happened to 'get into the picture' at the wrong moment. In fact the whole affair could be a complex and twisted hoax. He grimaced at the thought for he was too deeply involved, convinced of what he had seen, to allow it to end like that. He looked around, vaguely uneasy. Was he being watched, he wondered?
Half an hour later, on stepping out of his shop, he was still unsure of a target, and when he pointed his camera at the facade opposite it was a random choice, the easiest one that presented itself. The people passing took little notice of him and he waited until the street was relatively quiet. He brought the camera up quickly, focused and shot without too much attention to the composition. He turned away immediately into the shop where, once inside, he leaned heavily against the door, hoping one thing, then another. Then, as if a giant wind had risen, a bedlam of yells and screams rose into the air. Hunter moved away from the door towards the counter then turned to look out of the shop window. At first he thought he was witnessing a riot. From what he could make out, past the decorations in the window display, people were running and filling the area in front of his shop. There was a screeching of brakes, a howl of car horns and the crush grew greater until it blocked his view. Hunter went to the door and eased it open. The street was jammed with people all craning their heads towards a ... a great gap in the sky. Hunter could just make it out over the heads of the crowd. There was a sudden jostling and the mass of people around him swayed and seemed to groan. He was pushed sideways and he scrambled back to the shop doorway. "What's happening, what's going on?" someone cried at his side. Hunter looked to see his neighbour, the newsagent, a short man, jumping about desperately trying to see over the crowd.
"I don't know, I don't, I didn't see anything. Can't understand it, the fuss," Hunter was saying as he backed away, pushing his way back to the door of his shop. The crowd appeared to be growing denser. He shut and locked the door behind him and put the blind down. For several hours, oblivious to the pandemonium outside, he sat and schemed. It was the only possible way of describing the ideas that passed through his head.
It had worked. "Oh yes and how, he smiled. And all those witnesses. And still four frames left. Not finished yet, not by a long chalk," he plotted. "Need something more sensational to finish the film, then we'll see about the development. And that last film. Hidden at home. But that would come later, after. Still plenty of time ... have to think about it ... now then ..."

He was unprepared for the furore that his latest action had caused. That night in front of his television set he listened to the confused commentary and the dire retribution that was vowed on the perpetrators of the day's events. He had time to view his 'work' in close-up as the camera panned across, showing the details and the amount of damage that had been done. The building opposite his shop had been sliced through like butter cut by a hot knife. The incision was clean, the result, now with the crowds cleared, surgical devastation.
"It is too early yet to say how this has been done, explained the reporter. Police investigations are continuing and the culprits will be apprehended in the very near future." With this the news programme passed on to other affairs. Hunter rose slowly from his armchair and switched off the set. He pondered over the position he had found himself in as he looked at the dark eye of the television. He had confided in no one, perhaps he should. "But what for?" he asked himself out loud "Peopled think I was .., crazy maybe." He felt committed to just one more photo, to be completely sure, then, with any doubts left surely eliminated, the film could be developed. In the darkening house he mulled this over as he went round switching on lights. "Maybe, perhaps try Mary she might understand. Probably not believe me though. Maybe tomorrow. Call her. Tiring day today. Maybe she'll phone if it's been on the news ..?" His sister had been anxious for him these many years. His solitude had worried her even when he reassured her of his nearly total happiness. That's how he had put it, he remembered, "'... Nearly total.'" A strange way of saying how .., well, be honest with yourself man, it's not much of a life is it? Aye but tomorrow it'll change, he was thinking as he shuffled upstairs to his bedroom.
Outside in the quiet, stony streets a wind rose lightly and a small rain drizzled out of the darkness, licking the city with its wet breath. In another part of the town, far from Hunter's peaceful haven, harsh lamps lit a security cordon extended round an area of emptiness.

Hunter had time the following morning to change his mind. The day seemed peaceful, he had slept well and deeply, at all events unworried by what he had done. His camera lay on the table in the front room where he had left it the night before. It was such an ordinary, slightly outdated piece of equipment, he thought, looking at it as he drew open the curtains, so inoffensive, that it seemed to deny the previous day's events. Over his breakfast he listened to the early morning news. The volume of speculation had risen and the contaminated area, as it was now called, had been sealed off to everyone including the press, television and radio. Hunter only half listened; there was very little information and no facts, really a repeat of what had been said the evening before. He felt restless and eager to continue and finished his breakfast hurriedly.
He took the 33 down to the centre of town, his normal route, changed today, he noticed, with all the diversions that had been put up during the night. The inside of the bus was noisy with debate. Theories were being bandied about. Each passenger had his own ideas as to the cause of the disappearances and Hunter smiled to himself as he listened and thought what a difference from the placid crowd that usually took that early run. He clutched the small camera case and wondered what would be the reaction if he explained what had happened. Disbelief probably... until he gave a demonstration. Take out part of the bus. No, no, that would be too easy really, he thought. Something special was required.
He alighted at the east end of Princes Street and went down into the gardens below the Scott Monument. He had suddenly and desperately wanted someone to speak to, to confide in, but after a few moments, alone on a bench, he calmed down. It was too cold to loiter long and he left the park and crossed back over to the northern side of the street. The broad avenue was busy with traffic, with people, shoppers, strollers, taken up with their own lives, unaware, Hunter thought, that amidst them he was there, with his camera, his film. People passed him without a second glance, the traffic roared in his ears and he turned away from it towards the shop fronts only to see himself reflected in the giant windows there. There was no respite to be found here. He felt himself buffeted by the crowd and he moved on unwillingly, taking shelter in the doorway of a building. The sky had changed again. The greens were vivid on the stone at the foot of the rock and the Royal Mile sprang out in brightened colours as the sun poured down on its tenement blocks. The sculptured stonework took on forms, expiring as the light passed on. Was he the only one to see this, he asked himself? Did no one else care? Some hard, angular object pressed into his chest underneath his coat. The camera. He had hidden it there, to protect it and now as if to remind him of his mission it pressed into his body. No it was just his imagination. Nothing was going to happen. He smiled at his reflection in a high black window where the castle floated above his head and he took out the camera and let it hang from his shoulder.
He strolled westwards, admiring the buildings, the gardens, the castle, always the castle, lining it up, just like any other tourist; he laughed out loud at this. He stopped, then walked on slowly, the view not suiting him. Here at the centre of the avenue the crowd had thinned and he was jostled less. At some point he judged the angle about right and he manoeuvred himself into a position for the final shot. Feeling exposed he backed into a doorway and waited for the light to change. He looked up at his target, suddenly serious and licked his lips nervously. Framed by the dark greens of the trees, the gleaming blackness of the rock and the grey blue of the sky, the silhouette of the castle dominated the city. Hunter lifted the camera and took a reading, altered it, and ... and hesitated. It was a normal, reflex action. The composition did not please him, and neither did the light. It was too flat. He studied his subject. He could make out people walking the ramparts, pigeons wheeled round its buttressed walls, flags hung limply. He turned to look for the sun but it was hidden and he had to wait some time for the right moment, the right light. He loitered on the street corner, on his little island in a busy sea of passing humanity, shunned, scorned even, he knew, he imagined. The clouds parted an instant, the scene took on its colours, its contrasts. Hunter stepped to the kerb without thinking, his mind a momentary blank and fired.
The effect was stunning, more than he could ever have believed. It was as if the sky had opened up into space, not to a deep blackness but to a vast cupola of pale weak light. No stars were visible but a hint of an eternity, of an immense emptiness surged out, clutching at the people and a great bellowing of voices filled the air. Screams of rage, of fury, flying around him. In those first moments, the entire city, all those who could see the castle, stopped moving, breathing, stopped living and cried out. People poured from offices, shops, houses, the area became blocked by the mass, flooding the gardens at the foot of the rock, overflowing into side streets.
Hunter forced himself through the crowd. All around him voices were raised and he pushed out of the tightening mass to its edges. There, in an alley, he rewound the film and removed it from his camera. He stood listening to the clamour, the wail of police sirens, the lamentation and screams of thousands of people rising to the empty sky, into the void where the castle had stood. He trembled suddenly, with fear, with the delayed reaction, with the thought of being found here, accused and ... torn apart, lynched.
The city swarmed like an uprooted ants' nest, people were milling around nervously as Hunter started his long walk, through the crowds descending to the castle, back to his shop. By the time he arrived there those outside his premises had moved on to join the throng at the castle site. He looked over to the other side of the road where the gap in the facade was cordoned off and partially hidden behind a large plastic cover attached to the scaffolding, then entered the shop and locked the door behind him.

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 Copyright Zygmunt NOWAK-SOLINSKI