Lance Olsen: Girl Imagined by Chance

Maybe this is what it has been from the beginning.

Maybe the rest of your story is only about what your story has always been about: transformation and the inability to discuss the process of transformation.

Things change. Things change. Things change.

But why?

What do those words mean?

Your story has always been all about the description of input and output, but it has been unable to relate the two.

You learn an 8” x 10” digital image of reasonable quality uses one megabyte, the equivalent of five hundred double-spaced pages of text.

One hundred thousand words, to put it another way.

To put it another way among many other ways.

There is no reason to produce the photograph that occupies this black box because it exists only for you. For you and Andi. To everyone else, it would be just another snapshot.

To everyone else, it would seem ordinary.

This is not a photograph.

This is not that.

At most, viewers may be attracted to the way it fixes a particular person or group of people in a particular landscape at a particular point in time, if that is in fact what it does.

Did.

If that is in fact what it did.

Because, in discipline, it is the subject who has to be seen.

His or her visibility assumes the hold of power that is experienced over her or him.

Because memory jumps from photograph to photograph like connecting the dots in a cheap, mass-produced drawing, only what happens when a photograph is missing?

The obvious assumption being that the person who originally said this said it much more eloquently than you.

This assumption being a given, of course.

So to speak.

Viewers might note with bland curiosity the subject’s clothing, say, the historical dynamics of the scene, the angle from which the shot was taken, conceivably even some background feature that might have eluded you.

The composition.

The way the cold silver light falls.

For them, this photograph would never be more than a visible object of analysis, something to deliberate upon briefly and then put down in order to move on to something else.

You cannot accept this about people.

All that information.

All that data flooding in.

There is a reason that most visitors to museums stand in front of a masterpiece for an average of thirty seconds.

You have read about the study that confirms this.

About how the researchers set up hidden cameras to monitor the viewers’ eyes.

How the viewers spend almost as much time reading the plaque on the wall next to the masterpiece as looking at the masterpiece itself.

Because, perhaps, they believe they have better places to go.

Because they merely want to say they have been there, done that.

For them images will always remain a place to visit, not dwell in.

Viewers want to see, but after the seeing they do not know what to do besides articulate that seeing has taken place.

To everyone else, this would be just another snapshot.

It would amount to one more picture among many other pictures.

To you, it represents everything that is important about your story.

To you, it depicts a universe that could have existed but for many complex reasons did not.

One future among those many futures you are unable to enter.

A kind of incandescent prospect.

Yes.

That is what you think about as you stand there.

That is what you think about as you stand by the fresh grave, head lowered, December snow twinkling in the air around you like a flurry of mica chips.

That is what you think about as you stand by the new white lozenge of marble in the cemetery on the other side of the gully, surrounded by a small circle of friends and family from back east.

That and poker tells.

That and poker tells and the weather.

The weather has been so cold lately that you had to drive into Deary yesterday to purchase a pick ax to break up the winter earth.

Your hands numb even now.

Your nose running.

The gravestone surprisingly easy to acquire.

Branda stands winged beneath Benn’s right arm, her face primrosed with grieving, stands next to Kysha and Thom, handkerchief bunched in his fist yet stoically tearless, stands next to Karla, leather-gloved hands clasped before her, stands next to Andi, rubbing her jaw again, you notice, in an automatic gesture.

In the look away what is interesting is that players reflexively glance aside from the table when dealt a monster hand, faking indifference.

It is Sunday.

Flakes of ice complicate the afternoon.

You stand there, thinking and waiting.

A group of crows is called a murder , and a group of lapwings a deceit .

A group of turtle doves is called a pitying .

You have shaved your head.

Eventually, Branda says:

I, um… I’d like to say a few words, if that’s okay and all.

There is no clergyman present, to make the perhaps not completely unpredictable point.

No clergywoman, either.

You told everyone on the phone this would be a private nondenominational memorial service. Everyone is, therefore, dressed down. Everyone except Kysha and Thom, both wearing dark blue suits and dark blue full-length coats as if ready to walk into a country club.

Excluding Kysha’s quilled hair which reminds you of an amethyst mace.

You are wearing jeans and a ski jacket.

Jeans and a ski jacket and sneakers and your head is one-hundred-percent bald.

Please, you say to Branda. Absolutely. By all means.

In the freeze bluffing players confronted with an opponent’s big bet involuntarily cease movement and hold their breath.

To insure the desired exposure you should take one shot at what you perceive to be the correct exposure, then one above and one below that first reading.

This is called bracketing .

Branda begins to speak. Speak and grieve. She explains, grieving, how she never got a chance to meet Gen but had heard so many stories about her over these past months she felt she already knew her.

How Branda had really wanted to get to know her better and thought she would some day but how every now and then we do not have the time we thought we would have to do the things we hoped to do.

How nonetheless she is certain Gen is somewhere special.

Branda can, she alleges, feel her.

Branda can feel, she says, grieving, Gen’s presence all around us.

It’s like… um, she doesn’t know how to say it. It’s like…

May God grant you healing and all the graces you need through the intercession of our Lady of the Miraculous Medal , the condolence card one relative sends you reads.

As Branda speaks, your nose begins to run harder.

It is difficult for you to determine whether you are crying, too, or simply very cold.

The weather being what it is.

You cannot put your finger on it, strictly speaking, but somehow the day suddenly feels so long and gray and dismal.

Andi looks over at you, taken aback.

You can tell she is trying to figure out what is going on.

You take a tissue from the pocket of your ski-jacket and blow, which makes your eyes begin to redden and water.

Maybe you are catching the flu, you think.

Maybe you are not.

Gen:Dad. Daddy. Dad.

Dad:…

Gen:Da-ddy. Daddy . Dad. DADDY . Hey, Dad.

Dad:What is it, honey?

Gen:What did Cinderella say to the photographer?

Dad:…

Gen:You can’t think about it, Daddy. You have to just say the answer right away.

Dad:…

Gen:You can’t think about it . Come on. Guess. Make a guess. Guess. Come on. Do it. Guess. GUESS .