Narrator: Ben L. | Maryland, USA
My wife bought a secondhand film camera for a photography class. There was a partly used roll in it. We finished the roll taking bad pictures of our cat and had it developed.
The older photographs showed an ordinary house. Kitchen, stairs, window with a cracked pane. Nothing worth mentioning until the last of the previous owner’s pictures.
It showed our bedroom. Our current bedroom. Same heap of clothes on the chair, same green glass on the nightstand. My wife was asleep on her side. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the camera.
The picture had been taken from inside our wardrobe.
I looked terrible in it. My mouth was open and I had both hands pressed against my ears. There was a dark line running down the wall behind me where our wall had no crack.
We had the negatives. It wasn’t a printing mix-up. The frame was there between a stranger’s staircase and a picture of our cat.
We moved the wardrobe out, searched the room, changed locks. My wife wanted to keep the photo as evidence. I asked her to put it somewhere I wouldn’t find it. She has never told me where.
