The Photography

I found the photography in a box my family hadn't opened since we moved into the house.

It was an old picture of my parents standing outside their first apartment.

I was looking through the box because I needed an old document, and the picture caught my attention.

My parents were both smiling.

I was standing between them.

Except I wasn't.

I hadn't been born yet.

I knew the picture was old because my dad was wearing the same jacket he had in pictures from before I was born.

I asked my mother about it.

She looked at the photograph for a few seconds and told me she didn't remember taking it.

I thought that was strange, but nothing more.

That night, I put the picture on my desk.

The next morning, I noticed something different.

There was another person in the background.

A man standing across the street.

He wasn't there in the original picture.

I was sure of it.

I took a picture of the photograph with my phone.

The man was still there.

I zoomed in.

His face was blurred.

I thought maybe it was just an old photograph and I had never noticed him before.

Then I noticed his position.

He was looking directly at the camera.

The next day, the man was closer.

Not much.

Maybe a few steps.

But definitely closer.

I showed my mother.

She got angry and told me to throw the photograph away.

I asked why.

She wouldn't explain.

So I did what any idiot would do.

I kept it.

Every morning, I checked it.

The man kept getting closer.

Across the street.

Then on the sidewalk.

Then beside my parents.

Then behind them.

The strange thing was that the photograph never changed physically.

It was still the same old paper.

But every time I looked at it, the man was somewhere different.

Three nights later, I woke up because my phone was vibrating.

Someone had sent me a photo.

It was the same picture.

Except now the man was standing directly behind me.

I turned around.

Nobody was there.

I deleted the message.

Five minutes later, another one arrived.

Same picture.

The man was closer.

I didn't sleep that night.

The next morning, I went through the old box again.

I found another photograph.

Same apartment.

Same parents.

Same street.

But this time, my parents weren't alone.

There were three people standing outside.

My mother.

My father.

And the man.

I asked my mother who he was.

She finally told me the truth.

When she and my father first moved into that apartment, they found an old camera inside a closet.

They took a few pictures with it.

Every picture showed the same strange man somewhere in the background.

At first he was far away.

Then he got closer.

My mother said they eventually destroyed the camera.

But they kept one photograph.

Just in case they ever needed to remember what he looked like.

I asked her why she never told me.

She looked at the photograph in my hand.

Then she said something I'll never forget.

"Because he only appears in pictures of people he's already found."

That night, I checked my phone.

There was a new photo in my gallery.

I never took it.

It showed me sleeping.

And in the corner of the room was the man from the photograph.

He wasn't standing anymore.

He was sitting beside my bed.

Looking at me.

And when I zoomed in on his face, I could finally see his eyes.

They were closed.

Like he was waiting for me to open mine.