What is your favorite retreat from the world?
~Canon~
The room was suffused with a rich red light, like the glow of a newly banked fire. Mister Smith moved among the shallow pans of liquid, carefully monitoring the progress within. As he watched, the silvered paper became etched with ghostly forms in black and gray. With his bare fingers, he pulled the photograph from its bath and held it up to the red light's sheen. In his hands was history; an indisputable truth for future generations. A picture painted a thousand words. Long after the words failed and their meaning lost to time, the pictures would remain. Stark and clear and glaringly honest.
Here was his passion. His release. His purpose. Here, in this tiny closet of darkness and crimson light, where the World and all it had become was confined to small squares of silvered paper and nitrate.
~Fanon~
Mister Smith sealed the caps on the chemical bottles as tightly as he could, discouraging tiny, inquisitive fingers from tampering with the deadly contents. He then placed the bottles in a cupboard. With the darkroom finally clean and child friendly once more, he turned out the light and closed the room behind him.
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, his photography had been his one pleasure and escape. Odd, that taking photographs of the Big Death world should have become a retreat for him from those self same horrors.
Now? Now his salvation and his retreat was here. Not in the darkroom he'd just left behind, but here, in the adjoining bedroom. Where the most beautiful woman in the world and the keeper of his heart sat in a chair, reading. Looking up as he entered, she offered a smile just for him. The sort of smile that made his heart melt and his soul to sing.
Kneeling beside her chair, he took her free hand and kissed her fingertips. His beloved wife. His sanctuary from the world.
The room was suffused with a rich red light, like the glow of a newly banked fire. Mister Smith moved among the shallow pans of liquid, carefully monitoring the progress within. As he watched, the silvered paper became etched with ghostly forms in black and gray. With his bare fingers, he pulled the photograph from its bath and held it up to the red light's sheen. In his hands was history; an indisputable truth for future generations. A picture painted a thousand words. Long after the words failed and their meaning lost to time, the pictures would remain. Stark and clear and glaringly honest.
Here was his passion. His release. His purpose. Here, in this tiny closet of darkness and crimson light, where the World and all it had become was confined to small squares of silvered paper and nitrate.
~Fanon~
Mister Smith sealed the caps on the chemical bottles as tightly as he could, discouraging tiny, inquisitive fingers from tampering with the deadly contents. He then placed the bottles in a cupboard. With the darkroom finally clean and child friendly once more, he turned out the light and closed the room behind him.
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, his photography had been his one pleasure and escape. Odd, that taking photographs of the Big Death world should have become a retreat for him from those self same horrors.
Now? Now his salvation and his retreat was here. Not in the darkroom he'd just left behind, but here, in the adjoining bedroom. Where the most beautiful woman in the world and the keeper of his heart sat in a chair, reading. Looking up as he entered, she offered a smile just for him. The sort of smile that made his heart melt and his soul to sing.
Kneeling beside her chair, he took her free hand and kissed her fingertips. His beloved wife. His sanctuary from the world.