He played God and he liked it. Their fate was already written. Well, written was a way of saying it. Pencil in his hand (his friends often teased him about his ink-phobia), he wrote the first word, contemplated it, placed a comma and went on with the story.


“Pretty”, she said, looking at the photo, yet thinking nothing extraordinary. All she could see was a common expression on a common face.
As if expecting something more, he paused with his eyes rested on the picture. Then looked at her again and flipped the page.
“And this… the only ones my mother could save; I burnt the rest.”
Judging by the smile on his face, she could take him for a pyromaniac.
“Burnt?”
“Yes. I threw away everything! Pictures, gifts, letters, notes… Including a ring she once gave me- hmm… It’s somewhere on the bottom of Alma, the river running through my city.”
Quickly he clapped his hands, as in an attempt to chase a ghost, and the next moment he was determined to be cheerful:
“Did I tell you I’m a speleologist? “


Then he paused. It all seemed too stiff, too…directed. Or maybe it was good that it turned out that way. After all, that was their first ‘live’ encounter, not taking the Internet chats into account (he wasn’t sure about the names yet or if the characters would have names); the moment had to be awkward. He rolled his eyes around the room. The air inside was stiff too. Since Lizzie left, nothing really felt the same. Even the old Shaky, as he liked to call the complete Shakespeare edition, covered in leather, pages worn out because of too many notes written on the margins, seemed misplaced in his claustrophobic office. The picture camouflaged this. Her smile almost broke the margins of the photo when he looked at it. Maybe this is how he managed to work for 15 years. Then he returned to the paper. They were waiting.


And before she could say anything, his hands were already searching among white papers, crayons of different kinds and notebooks that fell on the floor as he opened the closet.

“Well, not a professional one, but I’m in this group that takes trips around the country. We visit places, study the rocks… we even discovered a cave once. I have an article here somewhere.”

She couldn’t stop smiling in the corner of her mouth thinking of the cleanness of the room when she entered. The air was fresh and both windows open, the old but still shiny furniture well polished, and everything picked up. Although old, the apartment was still well maintained.


An involuntary memory flash made him stop. 2004. It was quite an experience. He and Lizzie reached the hotel on a stormy night. The streets were dirty and dangerous. Bucharest by night looked nothing like the pictures in the magazine. There were many gypsies, stray dogs and rude taxi drivers. When they finally got to the hotel, they started to laugh. The furniture seemed to be from the previous century, leaning a bit towards left. Well, that was all they could find at the moment. She told him that a realistic story had to be experienced first, ‘lived’; then she started to cry. He knew that it had nothing to do with the hotel, but everything with her exuberant laughter on the plane. He had never seen her laughing like that. Now he was sure the setting had to be one of those apartments which the Romanians can actually buy. The characters had to be young, though. So he grabbed the pencil like a knife and started to carve in the paper.


The Sony radio with its silvery boxes seemed out of place, together with his wide screen TV and the laptop lying on the sofa. She later found out that the owner was a Mrs. Clean and she sometimes appeared unannounced to make sure that it was kept the same way. However, the biggest surprise was to see herself -actually her picture, in the window, strategically arranged so that you couldn’t miss it. A young expressive girl, head on her hand, with sandy, medium hair and a disarming smile. It was taken at the end of high-school, when she finally allowed her friends to put some make-up on and style her hair. Yes, we all have skeletons in the closet, she thought, taking another glance at the mess on the floor. And still amused of the thought, she looked at the second picture of his ex. Two large black eyes were observing her from the middle of a white oval face, almost demanding to be acknowledged.


He thought that he could suggest a resemblance with Medusa and this way create a definite conflict.


“She looks different here, very pretty”, said she with a tone that wanted to be definite, while holding the album very tight in her lap.

“Oh, here it is!” and he came towards her while unfolding an old page from a magazine. Although the colors were faded and you could see the cross formed by the wornness of the paper, he was the same. Relaxed, with a miner’s cap set a little back on his head in a cool teenage-look, he was smiling from the middle of a group formed of like-capped young men and an older one next to them.

“This was taken after we discovered the cave. Actually I was the first to enter it. I couldn’t let the instructor do it. He’s too old for that, see?” and pointed at the old man in the picture. “The cave was 200 feet below and we didn’t know what to expect. It could’ve been an obstruction somewhere.”

“And was it?” she replied, trying to refrain herself from feeling too enthusiastic about it.

“Not really, but I did end up going to the hospital that evening. Let me show you the scar.” The next moment he took his shirt off and revealed a tattoo on his lower back, in gothic font and black ink. “Well, not this one, but next to it.” Indeed, the pale rays that entered through the wine-colored curtain shaded a scar that resembled a curl. She always wanted to have curly hair; not that she was complaining, her hair was beautiful too, soft and straight, but curly hair made a bigger impression. It was like the difference between a rich vine in autumn and a blooming one in spring.

“I see it now, it’s funny looking.”

And before she could take another glance the spot was covered again, the curtain dropped at the end of the show. She had not really seen a man’s back so close and it seemed fascinating.


The comparison with the curtain seemed smart. Lizzie would have liked it…She told him that night, while still in Bucharest. They went to the Athenaeum, where he was supposed to meet with some writers –some he knew by name, none by face and most of them he never heard of. They were playing ‘The Imaginary Invalid’, a most unfortunate choice, he later realized. She was wearing a gorgeous black dress and he never felt more proud to be her husband. After the show Lizzie was brilliant. Practically she led the conversations, involving everyone and saving him from many dead situations. When they came back to the hotel she told him.

* * *

A mild autumn breeze entered the room, animating the curtain and bringing inside a faint sweet scent. She approached the balcony door and admired the shapes of the streets, which from that altitude seemed geometrical sketches on a green colored paper. People moved in slow motion from a point to another, only their voice seemed to obey the natural rhythm. A man from the 8th floor, a level higher than they were, was watching them curiously. In that moment she was wondering what he must be thinking and realized that she didn’t know more than he did.

“So have you seen her yet?”

“No, I tried to call her but I don’t know exactly where she lives. She must be on campus.”

She bent her head and said nothing.
The door bell woke her up from the reverie. She listened to the words coming from his mouth and couldn’t understand at first until she heard a woman’s voice. Then it struck her like lightning: it was his ex, he needed someone to forget her, the memory was too powerful, especially now that it was standing in flesh at the door. All the letters, the picture, the promises were a desperate attempt to overcome a memory. She felt used and ashamed. All she could see was some dark curly locks that slowly changed into serpents before her sight became foggy. She could only feel the Medusa entering the apartment, like stepping into a cave.

This seemed like a good ending, not too revealing, but powerful. Still, he felt like the story was not over yet. Not over. Lizzie died soon after their return to Michigan. The doctors gave her three months, but she was gone before the second. Her beautiful black eyes seemed still alive in the framed photo, larger than life. So he tore the papers, sharpened his pencil, took a deep breath and decided to try again. This time he started with the title, determined to bring Lizzie back to life in a fictional act:

Picture Album