The Amazing Story Challenge: Day 6
Date: March 8th,
2016
Numbers: 59, 30, 23
Prompt: “After
Escaping prison, the oldest man in the world is reunited with a long-lost twin.”
Medium: Short Story
The Man In the
Photograph
By: Hayley Michelle
Trachtenberg
He didn’t recognize his own face. His
fingers traced his skin questioning if it really belonged to him. It felt
rougher than he remembered. Lighter. Saggier. The skin on his cheeks were rosy
from the cold air. He could feel the blood just below the surface of skin
pulsing slowly at a calm pace that he didn’t distinguish as his. His eyes were
a bit dimmer than they were before. Their blue hue was sprinkled in with a
diversity of various grays. His hair, what was left of it, was silver, if not
white. His fingers looked chlorine soaked, and the joints in his hands ached when
he moved them to trace the crow’s feet that rested just below his eyes.
No, he did not recognize the features
on his face. He refused to believe that they were his. This skin was simply a
mask. A mask that hid a young man in his strapping 20’s. With toned features
and a bright smile…. A bright future…He told himself this.
He told himself this for years. He
never counted them when they passed him by. He simply nodded and let time pass
its course. He was never naïve enough to attempt to stop time.
Time was the only thing he had. He
refused to make time his enemy. He would even go as far to say that time was
his friend. He knew other inmates, and was very aware of their battle with
time. Some withered away here. Others took time in their own hands and ended theirs.
Others did their time, and most often, some men tried to turn back time. He
watched them all pass. Only he and time remained now. Only he and his memories
were left. His redemption was lost in the past, as was his crime.
He doesn’t remember the deed that
put him in prison. He only remembers the look on a woman’s face on the day of
his sentence. She had tear soaked cheeks, and the brightest green eyes he had
ever seen. She was so sad… She was so young...
He smiled at her memory. He hated
that he smiled at her tears, but he smiled because she was one of the last
beautiful things he saw. In recent memory, he only saw three things: the
ceiling, the floor, and his aged reflection. He couldn’t smile at that. Only
her. He used to think of her often. He would revisit her eyes every time a day
was especially hard to get through. At night, he’d rifle through the collection
of faces he had in his memory, and land on hers for a smile. Lately the faces
were fuzzy. At night when he’d think of her he’d sometimes get her eye color
wrong. On the worst days, he couldn’t remember her face at all. Some days he
couldn’t even recognize his own face, like today. The only face that never
faded away was his brother’s. He
couldn’t remember the last time he saw his brother, but his face never faded
because he kept a picture of him close at all times. When he was younger, his
brother and him looked so alike. Being twins, they took advantage of their
youth. They were handsome and strapping. Young. He no longer was, but he held
his brother in the highest respect; and respect was saved for youth. In his
picture, he stayed young forever. In his memory, his brother was immortal.
He was very aware that he was not.
On long nights he could hear his friend time wrap on the window. Sometimes he
would go to the bars and lean his ear against them to hear what time had to
say. Time never spoke, never said a word. Time would tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He knew he didn’t have much time
left.
He knew he didn’t deserve last
wishes, and he was far too old for last adventures.
But he refused to die a prisoner.
He escaped
with ease. He didn’t plan on it being as easy as it was, and yet, he wasn’t
about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wasn’t spry enough to hop the
fence, nor was he energetic enough to dig a tunnel. Instead he said please.
‘Please.
Let me pass’
He doesn’t
remember who he said please to, and he doesn’t remember who replied or how. He
doesn’t remember changing out of his orange scrubs, and he doesn’t remember
walking the highway.
All he
knows is that he is seated in a small dinner in the heart of Massachusetts. He
knows that he wears pants of a free man, and eats $4 oatmeal.
It tastes like freedom to him.
He sets his brother’s photo across
the table from him, and they share a meal. He pays the bill with money he doesn’t
remember acquiring and sets off.
He doesn’t know his destination. He
vaguely remembers directions from Shell Silverstein. He knows that it doesn’t
matter what direction he walks in, eventually he will get to where the sidewalk
ends and keep walking: hand and hand with his friend time.
He walks until he can’t.
He sits down on a curb, and
realizes that he remembers it. The chipped yellow paint, with a faded smudge of
red on the left corner. He scraped his knee on this curb when he was 5. His
brother chased him and laughed when he fell. He remembers, he was laughing too.
He turns and sees a house he doesn’t remember. He sees green grass, and perfect
white shutters. He sees a tree and a tire. Someone’s happy little family dream,
where his childhood house used to be. He doesn’t remember why, but he knocks on
the door.
When it opens, he looks at his feet
and holds up his brother’s photo.
He doesn’t remember why he does so.
A hand gently touches his shoulder,
and the old man looks up.
Standing before him is time.
Standing before him is his brother.
“You haven’t aged a day” the old
man says to time. Time nods, and opens the door for the old man. The old man
grabs brother time’s hand and walks through the door.
Smiling.
Young.
Young.
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