Photographic memory

Wanda walks down the long corridor of her home. She looms over every portrait on the walls. Pictures of her now almost grown children. All the ages of the past represented, different times, different seasons of life. She focuses her attention on one photograph,her daughter with her head turned away from the camera, in profile. Wanda studies her child's face closely.She stares deep into the picture. A long time seems to pass.

The child in the photo turns now, and faces full ahead, smiling at her mom standing there in the hallway.Every freckle, every dimple on her lovely face is preserved and alive, fully animated now as it was back then, at this age, at that moment in time. They are seeing each other now, but from another time. A past time.

Wanda continues down the hall, and old photos of both her daughter's smile and seem to also see her as she walks by.Her children, from many ages of their lives, now are turning in unison, waving, calling out to her in the hall.

"Thank you, God, for this amazing event.", Wanda thinks as she takes in this unexpected sight.

As she tries to leave the hall behind, very much later, they whisper and cry,"please don't leave us alone, won't you please stay?"

Wanda wonders, did she only imagine an ominous, sinister tone to their voices?

Another night, she must again be dreaming. For surely a dream was what it was. Wanda is walking through a darkened park. The figure of a woman passes,. The woman wears a bella clava, which covers her face. She calls out.

"Wanda, it's me, Charlene."
Wanda approaches her friend.Her friend pulls off the bella clava, and reveals the face of an ancient old woman. Wanda gasps.
How can her friend be this old? She turns and runs all the way back to her house, right to the mirror, which confirmed her greatest fear. As she gazes into the bathroom mirror, an ancient version of herself is staring back at her.

Wanda is herself again, these dreams seem to be all behind her now. A morning trip to a near by drug store, make-up shopping is in order.
Leaving the shop, out of the corner of her eye,she catches a glimpse of one of her girls from an old snapshot in her hallway at home.Wanda turns her head,to clearly see her daughter, now age three, it would seem, waving at her out of the side window of a mini van. The van pulls out of the parking lot.

Wanda is left to ponder these events, and wonder about their meaning.Is it just sadness and regret about her own lost youth, and time marching on, that seems to have given the loved ones in her life the ability to transcend time?

As the days go by, Wanda pretends not to notice as one or the other of her daughters, at various ages from the photographs in the hallway, passes her in the street, smiles from a taxi window, or calls out to her from a high rise window near her office building.She is afraid of the cause and effect of what has been going on, and has by now gone into almost complete denial. Only in moments of clarity and quiet contemplation does the truth seep into her conciousness, and she is able to ponder the question of what this is and what she could possibly do about it. \She had heard it said that having a daughter was one of the bravest things one could do, because it was like having a part of your soul detached from yourself, as a seperate entity, wandering out in the world.She now seemed to have many parts of herself, fragmented and non linear, running amuck everywhere she turned.

Wanda is sitting in her bathtub in the middle of the night. She is seriously considering the bold step of talking to somebody about this situation. Perhaps a professional, or a trusted friend? Would she be judged as insane, would anyone even begin to believe her?

A pleasant Tuesday morning finds Wanda walking through the familiar downtown streets of her city. She stops to talk to people she has seen around for years, bus drivers, her daughter at various ages, rushing off to some unknown home and family.

WORK IN PROGRESS