An Excerpt from my Short Story "13 Images of My Self Through a Nikon D3s"

I’ve Found Myself Here Again – Reliving the Past in Wide Angle – Image #1

As I exit my car I hesitate due to the collision of comfort and dread that accompanies my seeing the large, redbrick suburban home I used to visit on a weekly basis in my youth. Decorated for Christmas, I am reminded of the jejune feelings of excitement that pervaded the holiday season growing up. Naïve joy brought about by the cluster of events our culture feels the need to contrive to celebrate a day that has gone from holy to commercial. My soft spot for jovial gatherings becomes lackluster under the guise of forced ritual and hackneyed repetition. The purview of my visual experience buffets me with a rhapsody of recollections ranging from the disport experiences of my teenage life to the peccadilloes of my old friends who are socializing inside.

The trek through the kitchen and down the stairs startles me as images begin to disinter. I become encumbered with torment trying to replicate the view these individuals must have of me. My attempt at empathy leaves me with the disquieting feeling of self-derision and disgust at the flippant attitudes I have come to expect. As I round the corner of the stairs, I attempt to shake the premonition and search for ‘the benefit of the doubt’.

“Well hello there guys.” I make my presence known to the crowd of individuals surrounding the perimeter of the white-tile bar. Then the choir speaks: “Fr-EH-d”, “Oh alright, Fred”, “Holy shit, didn’t even know you still existed”, “If it isn’t Fred-DICK, hah”, “What’s going on man?” Each greeting coming in tandem with a head nod, point, or grimace. “Not much, I suppose. Kinda hard to sum it all up in a few words,” I try to placate the myriad of stares coming from all angles. “Yup,” says Don who then turns to continue the conversation he was having. The group resumes its cacophony, and I sit next to a friend on a bar stool who is plotted beside a done-up female figurine on his left.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” I ask as my mind becomes filled with the past context in which I knew the person sitting in front of me. “Oh, not bad, not bad. This is my girlfriend Megan by the way. This is Fred.” Holding the array of past occurrences involving Randy in my head, I know I have already met her. A sharp memory is a blessing and a curse: the gift of having easy access to past details is often spoiled by an awareness of the inconsistencies and disappointments latent within a historical contextualization of a person, especially oneself.

“Actually I’ve met Megan before, remember after your boxing match a few years back. Although you were a little woozy and it happened really fast.” As I continue to see Randy in a larger pool of memories, I am reminded of his truly docile nature - in spite of his pugilistic interests - and feel vexed at having highlighted his lacking memory in front of his girlfriend. Wide angles are made possible by short focal points. A plethora of memories brought into view, reflecting off internal mirrors to ensure each angle is brought into focus. The limited distance of the focal point provided by the large lens of history leaves me unable to forget the larger setting I’m a part of and focus on the niceties of my company.

“Oh, alright alright. I wasn’t sure.”
“No worries, it’s nice to meet you again anyways. So what’s life been like, where are you working?” This begins an onslaught of perfunctory questions about his life, most of which are answered by vague positive remarks like ‘good’, ‘awesome’, or ‘it’s not too bad’. I sometimes worry about the insidious nature of our inability to share deeper considerations. We feel comfortable with simple answers to life questions and save our words for banter and small talk. Does this numb us to our flaws, our inner disturbances, our mode of existence, or does it protect us from the reality of the mundane?

In the midst of my interrogating Megan about her job selling medical devices, I notice the mirth of those in my periphery. Don, perfectly in character, is making playful jokes about past behaviors and beating at the humor of his beer being in a plastic bag in the fridge. The group of brothers who grew up in this house have always seemed to have an idolization of Don, ostensibly for his wit, athletic abilities, and social energy, but suspicion suggests his family’s affluence, local popularity, and attractive dress and looks may inspire a submissive sort of envy. I can’t help but hear their back-and-forth as languid remarks that represent the stagnancy of their identities since high school. My judgment makes me uneasy, redirecting the judgment onto myself for discerning one form of life as better than any other. During a moment of silence between Randy, Megan, and myself, Don begins hovering, seeing if it is appropriate to interject.
“So Fred, what are you doing these days? You working around here or are you still out at that company in Chicago?” My consciousness becomes cluttered with the possibilities of how to answer this. I feel as if I am deigning myself due to the lack of appreciation and interest I suspect beneath the intentions of this question. I casually mention my lab job, but make the centerpiece of the conversation my quitting the job in Chicago. I tirade him with the disgust I felt for the chase of money, being sure to pause occasionally and ask him to describe his job as an accountant. He emphasizes the enjoyment of his current milieu, antagonizing me to transition from a critique of corporate life to a vilification of the individuals I was surrounded by in my former job. I felt dizzy at the internal oscillations of my attitude. Moments of candid expressions of the alienation I felt in corporate life accompanied by a real interest in the quality of his work life that were quickly transformed by the desire to quash his self-confidence and prove to him his own shallowness. The anxiety of dual disgust toward my situation and myself kept me on edge throughout the remainder of the conversation.

“Let’s play catch phrase,” finally, a way out. A suggestion made by Emily, a female gem of the old group I both respected and detested. The respect comes from what she has become—a self-motivated, liberal health enthusiast whose interests span from the benefits of meditation to the problems of agricultural funding—and the detest from what she has always been—a girl, aware of the power of her good looks, who thrives on the attention given to her by guys, and yet feigns ignorance when it becomes suspect that she may be merely toying with someone who is developing genuine feelings for her. Whirling around in my own head, dizzied by the vertiginous affects of being in a constant fluctuation of past and present, sympathy and antipathy, pride and self-effacement, I am compelled to run from that which I cannot.

As we play the game, I watch as the group I once was a part of reveals to me the schism that is insurmountable from my position. Finally as the image of the party begins to include my own presence, I discern that I am the one at fault. Not a single one of them felt afflicted by my company, but rather pleased to have me in their game. The inevitability of my captious thoughts made me certain that I had to leave - not for my sake, but theirs. I had a simple excuse: my friend Alan’s sister Laurel came into town tonight and he wanted me to meet her. At the close of the game I tersely express my need to depart, and hurriedly escape the inner discordance in which I had been wallowing. I took a final snapshot of the panorama of memory and moment I had been fabricating as I watch my former friends gesture me an awkward goodbye.