s.camera - lor’s third person

Loretta centered her existence around the pursuit of a higher state of being, of which she had not clearly defined but rather had dreamed up certain milestones to landmark her progress towards it. Some were marks of a mindset, and others were simpler, more material. One of these material achievements- if you could dare to call it an achievement- was to obtain a digital camera and capture beauty with its lens. Loretta was an enthusiast of beautiful things, as is known.

Loretta bought a camera. It was small and cute, silver on one side and black on the other. She liked it when she first saw it. When she got her hands on this lovely camera, she found that it wasn’t completely usable without an SD card. For this, Loretta sought her father. There were all kinds of things stored in their hoarder’s home and she was more than sure that what she needed could be found somewhere within the cracks of their massive house.

As Loretta thought, her father had many SD cards and was more than happy to give her as many as she needed. However, they were no doubt already full of storage, courtesy of the tens of years of age they boasted. The two sat down together in front of a laptop to move whatever mysterious files might have been residing on the card. Loretta was impatient. She wanted the card quickly. The faster she got it, the faster she would be able to capture whatever new bouts of beauty she would come across in the future. She had no particular expectation as to what she’d see on this card.

The files opened themselves and Loretta was faced with the visage of herself with an astounding baby face. There were all kinds of photos- some with old friends, many with her brothers, and a small selection with her parents, who had on their faces smiles that Loretta would be stunned to see in her present day. Her father let out a laugh and clicked through the pictures. Loretta felt shaken and, mostly, a somewhat disgusting sense of nostalgia for memories she had chosen to forget until that moment. At the same time her heart warmed itself. Seeing these photos made her want to abandon every little bit of progress that she had made towards her useless goals and, instead, leap through the screen and fade back into what she so badly missed being. Childhood seemed kinder than what she was currently living.

After a few minutes Loretta’s shock wore off and she enjoyed looking at the group pictures that she had surely cried and wailed over when they were taken. Her mind had refocused towards its original objective of emptying and obtaining the SD card. Her father made little comments whenever they came across a particularly silly photo. Loretta had a good time, for a while. Eventually her father removed the card from the reader and handed it to her. The files had been moved and the card was ready to be refreshed with new memories. That would wash away the seeming stains and murk of the old that it had laid, resting, in for an awful many years.

With a start, her father changed his mind. He had forgotten to remove every file, so Loretta handed the card back to him. He began, slowly, to check the file folders he had initially skipped over. Most were empty, but one, the video folder, seemed to be brimming. Curiosity overtook the two of them and they clicked the first file.

It was a video. The surprise that Loretta felt upon seeing photos of her childhood didn’t near rival the absolute shock that washed onto her as she beheld the sight. This scene in front of her was a starkly vivid memory that she had never truly forgotten. It was innocent, a child being a child. It was as if the memory had laid dormant, in wait, and had finally found the trigger to come out of hiding. Loretta drowned in a tormenting series of emotions all within the first 30 seconds of the video that played before her. At that moment was when she realized that the world no longer referred to her as a kid. She had become too mature, is what she'd be told if she asked for more consideration.

The moment passed and Loretta had since retreated to her room, empty SD card in hand. She nestled the card into the camera slot. With a light whir, the camera powered on and, upon Loretta’s checking the photo files, it was sure enough that any trace of the old files were no longer present. Loretta cradled into herself and wondered whether or not the beauty her camera would capture in the future was worth this kind of sacrifice.