Pictures in the Dark

by Eildon Rhymer

A young photographer finds a body, and becomes the uncomprehending witness to a terrible drama.

Part three: Day

Hours passed. As the day went on, the cold deepened, rather than lessened. The wind picked up, like clawed hands rattling at the windows. Whenever Tom looked out, though, the sky was still blue. The cloud in the east had moved closer, then stopped, like a spreading pall of smoke, low in the sky.

He had some lunch. He showered, and combed his hair, putting it into its usual neat ponytail. His hands only fumbled a little. When he lowered them, a dark strand of hair was caught between two fingers. He pulled it out, let it fall to the floor.

He remembered Rob wanted to comb his hair once. Tom had refused, laughing derisively and saying, "I know we're gay, but we're not little girls." He had combed it himself, and fastened it back with a leather tie. He had not turned round to see how Rob had reacted to his comment. Strange that it would only now occur to him to wonder, or even that he would remember it at all.

Memory plays tricks, he said to himself, as he sat down on the couch. Things happen, but then they get forgotten. They're never truly gone, though. They just need the right trigger, and then you remember them. Like a dark hair falling to the ground; a photograph; a smell or a sound. That was all that had happened. It wasn't that he was going mad, remembering things that were not true, or forgetting things that were. Memory was like that. It was like that for everyone.

He eyed the phone. He wanted someone to talk to, he realised. He wanted someone who had been there with him the night before, so they could put their heads together and talk about it, reassuring themselves that that they were not insane. "But I don't need people," he said. He was himself, alone, not caring for others, not needing them. Since Rob had left, he had hung around with brittle people, who took what they wanted, and owed nothing to anyone. That was what suited him. That was what he needed. He would show Rob that he could flourish without him. He would show him.

The wind battered at the door, almost like pounding fists. Could someone be there? Tom almost stood up, then forced himself to settle down again. It was just his imagination. Nothing was out there. He had heard no cars, and no figures had passed by the window, shadows over the light.

He turned to his photographs, to pictures of drops of water frozen and stilled by the cold. He saw branches, twisted like claws. He saw furrows and mounds in the snow, that looked as if they might be hiding something. He saw danger and menace in every one, and... "Stop it!" he cried, slamming his fist into the arm of the couch. It was stupid to mope here, as if he was afraid. He would get out there and take more pictures. He would reclaim the day and make it his own.

Tom threw on warm clothes, and tugged open the door before he had time to think better of it. The wind attacked him like a living creature, but he hunched his shoulders and drove through it. This time he headed in a different direction, away from the place he had found the man.

It was only after he had walked for a while, that he realised that he was going towards the unmoving cloud.

"But what does that matter?" he told himself. "It's just a freak of nature, nothing to be afraid of."

Rob tried to walk alongside him, his brow furrowed with anxiety, full of fear and superstition, urging Tom to go home. "I won't," Tom told him. "You always were a worrier. I'm free of you now. Go away."

Rob drew back, but did not entirely go. "That's not natural," he whispered, when Tom looked for too long at the cloud. "And surely it's never been this cold in March before."

Tom shuttered his mind against the whispering. He took a few photographs, some of the cloud, and some of the snow. When he turned round to look back the way he had come, he could not see the cottage at all, as if the snow had buried it utterly. He saw his own footsteps, though, coming to this place. There were other footsteps, too, following a similar path, two sets side by side. Barney and Bran, he thought. He wondered where they had left their car, and whether they had found the man they had been looking for.

"You should have helped them search," Rob whispered, but Tom rounded on him, hissing, "Get out of my mind!" He hated this habit his own mind had of speaking in Rob's voice, especially as it only ever told stupid, sentimental lies. The man had chosen to leave, and now two other men, just as crazy as him, had come to look for him. They were welcome to each other. It wasn't Tom's problem.

He stamped on. The brightness of the sun started to fade, and he peered upwards, frowning. He must have reached the edge of the dark cloud, although his eyes told him that it was still further ahead of him. In the sunlight, there had been no birds, but now the silence seemed even deeper, as if there was no life at all ahead of him.

He was breathing shallowly. His hands were trembling, moist with sweat inside his gloves. "Stupid," he told himself. "Stupid."

"Do you think so?" a voice said.

Tom all but screamed. Fury came in the wake of fear, when he saw who it was who had spoken. "You," he shouted. "What are you trying to do to me?"

"Nothing," said the man called Will. He was standing up, leaning against a slim tree. His hands were behind him, close to his body, fingers curling into the bark as if he was using them to help keep him upright.

"Then why did you hide like that?" Tom demanded. "Why did you jump out at me?"

"I'm sorry," the man said. "I was hiding from... someone else. I thought you were someone else. I'm too tired to hide for long, so when I realised you weren't..."

"That's enough," Tom commanded. "People were looking for you," he said. "Your friends, or so they said. Did they find you?"

Will shook his head, a tiny, fragile movement, as if his head hurt him a lot. "They would have, but I didn't let them."

"Funny way to treat friends." Tom gave a bark of laughter. In his imagination, Rob raised one eyebrow.

"I know." Will half-closed his eyes. "They want to help. They still think this is something they can help me with. They don't understand that..." He sucked in a breath, seemingly in pain. When he had let it out slowly, he continued. "This is it. No-one can help. If they had stayed with me, they would only have got hurt."

"So you hid," Tom said. He understood little, but he understood that much. "Rather than tell them that to their faces, you hid, and they're probably still running around out there, worried out of their minds."

"Yes, they are," Will said, but this time his eyes were clear. "You have to make cruel decisions sometimes. This was for the best. At least they have a chance of..." He stopped. Tom had a sudden, insane idea that he had been about to say, "living."

"You lot really are melodramatic, aren't you?" he said, shaking his head. "They talked about spells and wizards. You're talking about... Well, you're making it sound as if the world is about to end."

"I hope it isn't," Will said quietly, "but I've done everything, everything, and I don't know..."

"Please." Tom laughed, flapping his hand. The sun was almost entirely gone, now, but the silence was no longer absolute. If Tom listened hard, he could hear something, like the buzzing of a thousand insects, far away, or the whispering of an enormous crowd. Despite himself, he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

"You should go," Will said. "You..." He cried out, his hand rising to his brow. He sagged, slipping down the tree trunk that was supporting him. Tom almost found himself lunging forward to catch him, but he reminded himself that he did not do such things. Will looked at him, and Tom felt himself stricken cold, for there was utter insanity in Will's eyes. Then Will cried out again, and his eyes were calm again, deep and old. "I can't hold out much longer," he whispered, "and there's still so much to do."

Go, Tom thought. I'll go. Back to the cottage, where he would lock the door against the weather, close the curtains, and settle down to an evening working on his pictures. No-one would phone. No-one would interrupt him. And them, in a few weeks' time, he would return to London with a bulging portfolio, the makings of a masterpiece. He would exhibit it, and people would marvel. He would score a point over all his rivals, and Rob would... And Rob...

Will was still looking at him, and his eyes were like mirrors, and Tom saw things in them, things that no-one ever saw.

He saw the fear that he had felt in the cold and the wind, and the knowledge that he was entirely alone. He remembered those happy months and years when he had had someone to come home to, someone to talk to, someone to share things with, and he missed them. He saw Bran and Barney, desperately anxious about their missing friend, and he remembered, too, that he had told no-one that he was coming to this cottage, but no-one was searching for him.

He remembered his urge to help. He remembered how he had been unable to walk away the night before. He remembered how he had taken photographs of the body before he had taken any steps to find out if he needed help. He remembered the argument with Rob, many arguments with Rob.

"You're too cold," Rob had said. "Too selfish. Too heartless. Other people matter, too."

"Other people matter to themselves," Tom had retorted. "Let them fight their own battles. All I can worry about is fighting my own, because no-one else is going to."

"I will." Rob had tried to take his hand. "I will fight your battles, even if you never fight any of mine." Then he had given a strange, twisted smile. "But I do wish you would fight mine sometimes."

Rob was stupid and sentimental, though, and Tom was better off without him. He did not miss him. Well, he missed him sometimes, but that would pass. He would show Rob that he had been holding Tom back, that now he was freed, he could flourish. He would...

"But I do miss him," he murmured. Because there was no-one to go home to, to talk to about this. There was no-one to experience this with him. There was no-one who really liked him, who wanted him to succeed, who just wanted him to be happy. There was no-one searching for him, no-one trying to protect him.

"Go," Will said quietly. "Be honest. Time is short. There is no time for lies."

Tom brought both hands up to his head. "What are you doing to me?" he pleaded.

"Nothing." Will shook his head. "It's just that, sometimes, someone else can be a mirror. It makes us see..."

"What do you know about me?" Tom grabbed him by the collar. "What are trying to do?"

"Nothing," Will said. "But if..." His face twisted. "If you can find your way, then perhaps... Perhaps it won't all have been in vain."

Tom pushed him away. Will's head smashed into the tree trunk, and Tom recoiled, staggering back through the snow. "You're crazy," he said. "Mad."

"Believe that." Will's voice was a fragile little thread. "I'm too tired to make you forget."

The sound of whispering was closer now, and there was faint movement in the depths of the cloud, like a million wings all fluttering together, the same colour as the sky. The cold was beyond natural now. It seemed to reach inside him, so it was at its most intense at his heart, and at its slightest on his exposed skin.

"What's happening?" Tom breathed.

"Nothing you need to know about," Will said. "You should go. Forget this." His mouth curved into a half smile. "That's a suggestion, not a command. I can't manage more. But you need to go. Far away, back to whatever it was that you ran from. Look into the mirror. Know yourself, and live."

Tom peered up at the sky. His legs felt leaden, and his body felt frozen. "But..."

"Go," Will croaked. "Run."

It was like a compulsion in his mind. It was as if something else was taking control of him, forcing his legs to run, forcing him to flee, plunging through the snow. The wind clawed at him. Greyness reached out of the clouds and tried to blind him.

Someone grabbed at him, and he screamed. "Where is he?" a voice demanded. Tom lashed out, fighting him, then realised that it was Bran. "Where is he?" Bran shouted.

Tom pointed mutely. Bran shoved him away so hard that he fell into the snow. Tom wanted to shout angrily after him, but all anger seemed to have left him. He just lay there, watched Bran run back the way he had come. I hope he's in time, he thought.

And then Barney was there, helping him up. "There might be a chance," he said. "We've found something, but if not..." He pressed something into Tom's hand. Tom closed his fist on it, but did not look to see what it was. "It might protect you. It was Bran's, but he..." He bit his lip, and ran on.

Tom watched him go, then stood up shakily. The urge to run had gone, and was replaced with a strange sort of clarity. He had no idea what was going to happen to these three strangers with their curious little drama, and perhaps he would never know. He had been right in what he had said to Rob so many months before. All he could worry about was his own, personal battles. Will had been wrapped up in his own. Bran had pushed Tom aside, so focused was he on what he had needed to do. Everyone carried on with their own little lives, like planes on their courses in the sky, passing, but never touching.

Tom could not make a difference to whatever it was that was happening to Will or Bran or Barney, but he could take control of his own life. He thought of Will, hiding from his friends, and Will saying how other people could be a mirror.

"Okay, I admit it," he said to the ghost of Rob, lurking patiently in his imagination. "I came here to run away. I was hiding, because I didn't want to bump into you, because if I did..."

Rob raised one eyebrow, expectantly, waiting.

"Because, if I'd seen you," Tom said, "I'd have realised how much I loved you. I'd have begged you to come back to me. I'd have promised anything."

Silence. Not a single sound from the snow. Bran and Barney was gone, swallowed by the cloud, but even the cloud was silent.

"Because I miss you," Tom whispered. "I love you. It's more important than anything. More important than my career. More important than life."

Rob smiled at him. Squaring his shoulders, Tom began to walk back to the cottage. It would take barely an hour to pack, and then he would be out of there, driving back south, on the long long journey to London, where Rob was, and his heart.

As he walked, he opened his hand, to look at the thing Barney had given him. It was a ring, a thin band of twisted gold, and it looked very old. It looked too big for any of his fingers, but there was something about it...

Tom thrust it into his pocket. Perhaps he would give it to Rob as a peace offering. It had been freely given, after all, and he would never meet Will or Bran or Barney again. He wondered what would happen to them, but already the memory was fading, and he knew that soon it would be gone.

He had fought his own battle, though, and that was what mattered. He was going home. Rob would be his again, and he would live. He would live.

END

Note: This inspiration for this story is a poem by WH Auden, called "Musee des Beaux Arts."

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

I'm fascinated by the idea of telling a big story through the viewpoint of a by-stander who doesn't understand what he is seeing, and doesn't really care. Many years ago, I wrote an X-Files story on this theme, called "Sailing Calmly On". I'm sure I have an unposted story in some other fandom on the theme, too, but I can't track it down. And here's its latest incarnation.

I do know a few things about the "real" story that was unfolding while Tom looked on uncomprehendingly, but I certainly don't know it all. One day, perhaps, I might get the urge to write it…