….whirrrrr…ching!
The camera came to life as his lens extended out from his front. "Hello, world!" he exclaimed to himself, ready to take it on--whatever it held. "What's on the agenda today? Vacation in
He had seen so much in his short lifetime. More than he ever thought possible when he sat on the shelf in his cozy cardboard home, dreaming of his future, waiting for selection. With each thing he saw and collected, he experienced true emotion, a camera's version of emotion. But he longed for more.
He didn't know what it actually felt like to laugh hysterically like a human, or to be a wild animal swinging through the trees, or a dazzling sunset with brilliant colors, or the endless ocean with its perpetual motion. He couldn't hear or smell these flecks of life. But he could see them. And he knew what he thought it might be like to live another life. He wanted to know that feeling. He wanted a true existence. He wanted to feel real.
Each picture he processed had a tiny breath of him in it so he could become part of the memory in some way, and in that, feel. That was some sort of consolation, he guessed. He felt more alive each time one of his pictures made someone smile or laugh. Even the silent chuckles made him proud of his work. The feelings he imparted on the humans pleased him. In that way he felt a bond with those organic creatures. They held so many mysteries for him and he longed to connect with it all. He wanted to understand.
But, at times his subject wasn't smiling or giggling, or… happy. Some moments made him want to scream. He couldn't believe it, but sometimes humans snarled! Reminding him of…what was the word? Ah, yes. Animals--the only way he could think to describe it. Other times, he wanted to simply cry. Just break down and have the salty tears pile up and pour down his front. But he couldn't. It didn't matter how hard he tried. They didn't manufacture him to cry. He never would. And that knowledge filled him with sorrow. But a camera's sorrow would never live up to what he imagined of a human. To cry equaled true feeling, in his circuits.
He remembered the time when he captured moments from a little girl's birthday party. According to the number of dripping wax candles on the cake, he knew she was turning two. The crowded house overflowed with more people than he had seen the entire time he lived there; filled to capacity with grown humans and small ones like the birthday girl, excited and giddy as they tottered awkwardly around the house. All the colors of the rainbow vividly came together in one room decorated with so many balloons and streamers. He never imagined that a birthday celebration would look like a piñata had exploded! He loved that image and processed a lot of it.
When it came time for the cake, the birthday girl, giggling and laughing, smashed her little hands into the sweet frosting. She made such a mess all over her pale pink dress! But he mused, "That must be part of what happens at birthday parties," because all the grown humans laughed and captured the scene with all the other cameras brought to the party. Then he noticed someone not quite as carefree as the rest. She was grown and had purchased him from the store shelf all those months ago. The birthday girl's mother… Her demeanor confused him.
Shouldn't she be delighted at all the excitement for her only daughter's birthday? Shouldn't she exhibit joy? Wasn't that the point of a celebration? Of course, what did he know? He was a camera after all. Surely he could find a valid explanation for her lack of smile.
He hoped he wouldn't have to capture her mournful expression. Sharing himself in that memory would drain his battery, he was certain. One day the girl would grow up and see the photograph and wonder why her mother didn't smile. He worried it would make the girl sad, and he didn't enjoy making people suffer; especially not when he had a part in helping them remember those unhappy times. That hurt him.
As irony would have it, he did capture a memory with the mother, the little girl and an older man he thought must be the grandfather of the birthday girl. The grandfather seemed to be a very kind man and doted on the little girl, wrapping his arm around her protectively. He was very happy to celebrate the girl's birthday and be captured for the memory. But when the girl's mother entered the frame, the sadness seemed to leap out of her eyes and into the camera. It overshadowed the smiles on both the grandfather and the birthday girl's faces. The camera could sense the pain and loneliness emanating from her. He had never felt an emotion that strong before and he suddenly realized what true misery and disappointment felt like for humans. "I've changed my mind! I'll find contentment in myself!" His circuits buzzed. He did not want to collect this. But he had no choice in the matter. "Please don't make me…" he whispered. His voice faded and drowned as the hand depressed his button and his light flashed. He clicked and created the photograph.
He did it. He had captured this moment in time. The one he didn't want to. The one he wished he could take back. It was then, with the mother's eyes boring into his lens, that he understood the reason for her melancholy. Her eyes said it all. He knew her pain and pitied her. But most of all he felt sorry for the little birthday girl, sitting on the car with her noisemakers in her hand. Posing so sweetly in her pink dress with the frosting stains. He knew she would spend this birthday and countless others without her father. In that moment, the mother told her story to the camera to be forever imprinted in the captured memory.
orignally posted on 6.30.08 on myspace
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