the Shadow-Woman

28May10

He hadn’t been to this kind of festival for ages. He had become one of those men who prefer the comfort of a cosy apartment to nights in a tent with pounding music all around and too much alcohol in their blood. He didn’t like the feeling that he was too old but he was a photographer and needed to work. He was sent there by a magazine specialized in those events and they paid well. What’s more it was a good opportunity to try out his new camera. Knowing its price he expected some miracle from his new “toy”.

He started with some random pictures. At the end of the day while watching them quickly something caught his interest. A blurry silhouette was on most of the snapshots. Someone, a woman for sure, passed constantly by his lens. He gave a closer look to pictures and noticed that she was on all of them as if she was following him and jumped in front of his camera deliberately. Sometimes she was far in the background; sometimes she took all the space. But she was never clear. Just a shadow and she never missed.
The following day he tried to find the shadow-woman in the middle of the crowd whilst doing his job. By the end of the day he had noticed nobody permanently around him. She must have gone.

He went back home and downloaded the pictures onto his computer. She was there. Not only on the pictures of the first day but on all of them. Also she was blurry. Just a blurry shape passing by again and again.
He was exhausted and this thing annoyed him. He decided to take a shower and to go to bed. He’d check it the next day at his leisure.

He woke up late, the sun was high up in the sky and he chose to have a walk and take more shots.
He went back two hours later and started to work on the pictures.
The woman was there, or rather the shadow-woman. He wondered if someone was kidding him but he realized how stupid that idea sounded. He stared at the screen watching all the pictures. She was there.

Two months after the festival he still used his camera trying to understand what was going on. The shadow-woman was keep following him. By the lake during the afternoon; In the narrow alleyway; At the party at his friend’s house.  But he couldn’t actually see her.
That was upsetting him. He tried to speak to some of his friends about it but they looked at him with incredulity. Nobody believed in his story.
Gradually he became afraid to use his camera. He felt he was spied on nights and days. Somebody was following him. Someone without real existence. He went out less and less. People turned away from him. They thought he got crazy and he had doubts, too, but he could see her in the pictures.

One day he decided to take pictures in his flat. The shadow-woman was sitting on the couch reading or watching the TV, sometimes brushing her teeth. But she wasn’t clear ever. Then he started speaking to her. She didn’t answer but she could hear him, he knew it. He found someone to speak to finally. He wasn’t crazy.

Tokyo, 35° floor of the Minato Tower, head office of  Nakon Society.
On the desk of the chairman was the thick file of the error reports of the new camera they had launched few months before.  Apparently a manufacturing fault created shadows in the pictures. They had to recall the entire product range the day after the launch. Millions of dollars invested in the R&D and the production was wasted for nothing. For nothing.

Photo by MrG; Story by Mlle Flou (with the help of MrG)

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Tags: gomes, mlle flou, MrG, shadow-woman, story