Morning everyone and Happy St. Patrick’s day. I hope it is a lucky one for you with absolutely no snakes involved. As for me, I am ready to jump into the morning prompt to chase away the morning fuzz from my brain. So timers set and off we go.
I am not sure exactly where this is going but I kind of like it. I think I might need another fifteen minutes to figure it out though.
Tuesday, March 17th: He opened the photo album.
He opened the photo album. The faux leather of the cover creaked and the plastic sheets slipped over each other. Slowly he began to look through the photos. They were, for the most part, posed shots. A couple stood in front of a house, arms wrapped around each other in one. A large family gathered in rows all lined up and staring stiffly at the camera in another.
There were images taken by professionals. School pictures, Christmas photos taken in a department store before the holidays began. There were pictures of children with Santa as well. Some looked happier than others to be sitting on the bearded man’s lap and surrounded by Christmas cheer.
He paused as he perused one of those photos. The man in the red suit and false bearded sat on his throne. The small somewhat confused-looking child sat on his lap as though uncertain why he had been placed there. The thrown was flanked by two elves looking like bodyguards in stripped leggings and green lederhosen. Behind them was what he was certain was termed something like Santa’s Grotto or The North Pole, or even The North Pole South, letting the more logically minded children know this was just a temporary Santa based outpost and not the real home of the fat man. Looking at the grotto behind Santa he was reminded not of Christmas cheer but of the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel.
Staring at it he wondered if Mrs. Clause was in fact the witch from the woods.
It lent an entirely new spin on the holiday tradition. ‘Maybe she and Krampus flip a coin to decide who gets the bad children,’ He thought. He shook his head and turned the page.
He wasn’t here to speculate on mixed mythology.
He ignored the backgrounds now, focusing on the faces. This was after all what he came for. To look at the faces. He scanned them in each photo. He took in the slant of a nose, the curve of a lip. He studied the shape of the eyes as well as their color, at least in the photos with color.
He nodded to himself, some thoughts, nebulous before, starting to gel. While he looked for similarities, mentally grouping people by their features, he was also searching for one face in particular. In all the baby pictures, school photos, and family gatherings, it was the one that was absent. It was only when he reached the last few pages that he began to see the face he sought.
The face appeared, first as a seven-year-old. There were no prior baby pictures. There were no maternity photos prior to the birth, nor pictures of announcements as there were before. The photos started at age seven and went up through high school. However, the other photos changed. There were no other large group gatherings. There were no other grandparents visiting or even large birthday party shots. It was just the child and the two parents. With the child’s addition, they became isolated from the rest.
He heard footsteps approaching and quickly closed the album and placed it back on the shelf.
Ten til Midnight 