photographs of a ghost

I know that when the sun goes down and the colours of the sky turn pink and orange as golden hour sweeps across the schoolyard; that’s the time to start heading towards the darkroom and wait for him.

When the sun no longer can be seen from the school, he’ll walk into the darkroom and begin to process his photographs.

I found him one day when I was walking aimlessly through the school. He was submerged in his work and I was careful not to disturb him.

“Why are you taking pictures of that girl?” I once was able to ask.

He looked at me with his big black eyes as if he hadn’t noticed me before I spoke up.

“The ghost?” He answered with a hoarse voice characterized by rarely being used.

“The ghost?”

“I take pictures of her or else no one sees her.” He answered bluntly and I was left to my own interpretation of the photographs.

He allowed me to look closer at some of them, and I found that on every one of them the girl was blurry. She would often be accompanied by a crow or a black cat, her face expressionless although her dark eyes would glimmer like stars while her long black hair would cup her pale face.

Day after day we would sit in the darkroom, him, working on processing the photographs, me, pondering over the girl: I never saw her at the school, nor any other place.

“What’s her name?” I asked the boy one day.

“I dunno.” He muttered.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“I dunno.” He muttered again. I am not to this day sure if he was answering automatically or if he really meant it.

I was so intruiged by the photographs and the boy with no name, but I was never able to find him during daytime in the school. My search for him was long and tiring and my schoolmates began to think of me as a lunatic as I, one after the other, asked everyone if they knew the boy with the film camera in the darkroom. No one did.

I tried asking my teacher but he shook his head. I also asked him about the ghost girl and he just turned to look out the window.

“This school is very old, you know, but ten years ago there was an accident. The school almost burned down. Everyone got out, but this very sweet girl.” He looked weary as he spoke. “She was my student, and a very lively one for sure. It was a terrible loss. But I never understood what she did wrong in her life to call such a horrible fate upon her.”

I left my teacher staring out the window. I did’nt really believe that the girl had called anthing upon her. It sounded like it was just an accident.

When I met the boy again in the darkroom that evening it was with a heavy heart and just before golden hour. He met earlier than customed and had no pictures to proces this time.

He told me he felt like he was fading. I told him that it was nonsense, he’d find other things to photograph that day. I did’nt really know what he meant by “fading”, but we both went up to the balcony of the school that was bathed in the gold sunrays of the sun so he could take some pictures.

But he was acting quiet strange that day. Walking like he was in a trance and talking much more than usual. I almost belived the ghost girl was there walking beside us.

“I can’t take more pictures.” He muttered when we arrived at the roof and dropped the camera as if it had come to be too heavy for him.

“Then, I’ll take some pictures of you. We’ll make a portrait of the artist.”

I began to take pictures of him, but he just ignored me and turned to look at the sun, savouring its warmth. I got a good shot of that scenario.

But as the sky darkend he really began to look more and more faded. It sounds strange but it’s the truth.

I wonder what he was thinking at that moment and who he was. He was a mystery to me and I thought that it was thrilling for it to be that way. I did’nt need to reveal anything myself. We would just be. To be without worries, was all I ever wanted.

But after I had spoken with my teacher about the ghost girl I had made my way to the library to find her name in the ten year old school register.

Aya was her name. But as I looked closer at her picture I could see something dark surrounding her shoulders and neck. Like a dark cloud as a heavy load. This was true for every picture of her I could find from before her death.

My grandmother would have called it a demon attachment.

“Are you free now? I hope you get to run on the clouds with me.” He whispered. Not to me. I looked through the camera to take another picture, but when i looked up again he was gone.

Later, when I looked at the pictures I took, I found that the boy wasnt alone. In the pictures, both the boy and the ghost girl look faded and blurry.

When I showed them to my mother she said: “Your grandmother would have called the boy an angel. It looks like he has a halo around his head.” She smiled wamly at me. “They are really good pictures! You should commit them to a photography contest!”