The Photograph – Part 5

Link to Part 4

There’s something amazing about the smell of coffee. Whether you like it or not, it will give you a memory to be recalled again and again. As it’s swirled through a metric jug before splashing into the awaiting simple white mug, many a man would have waited the taste and maybe the delivery more.

The coffee aroma was interrupted with a sudden blast of air as the door burst open and Sam entered the Cafe. She wasn’t alone, as usual.

“Come on guys, in we go, here is the best coffee and grub in the city, I guarantee, I know!!”

She shepherded in a few pimply suited kids and directed them to the tables they should encamp. Then she approached the counter.

“Ellie, give my clients the best of coffee, you know!”

“Sure Sam, as usual!”

“I have got the most amazing of contacts, one of these guys is directly connected to, what’s his name, I can’t remember, that guy who was running last year. This is a good one!”

“Glad to hear it!”

Sam glanced around the counter and then frowned.

“Oh no. That loser is back again? I thought you’d gotten rid of him, is he still hassling you?”

“It’s ok. He’s not that bad. He only comes in for coffee, and I’ve got to talk with him, he’s ok, and he likes that I take pictures!”

Sam shook her head and looked down at the counter, “He’s just saying that to you cause he knows you like that stuff. Aw come on honey, you’re better than all this. Coffee, creepy guys, you got good school, I got connections, look,  she said as she thumbed her guests over her right shoulder.

Ellie looked towards the table with the suited guys. She smiled and nodded a few times.

“There kinda cute!” she said.

“Hey I’ve got a whole collection of…….wait a second, what do you mean? You thing I’m just bringing these guys here ’cause they’re cute?”

Ellie waived both her hands in the air and smiled. “Thank you sister for bringing all these customers!!!!” she acclaimed.

“I’ve got work to do!,” moaned Sam, “and so have you, don’t waste your time on encouraging him,” she said as she pointed at the slightly built man at the end of the counter who had absorbed all the events. “He won’t get you anywhere, he’s like all the rest!”

***************************************

The Photograph – Part 4

Link to Part 3

Sometimes a clock ticking can be very similar to drops falling from a leaking tap. When you get the two together and they’re out of sync, it simply makes the slow passing of time even more unbearable.

Katie heard the swimming pool muffled sounds of the lecturer as she fingered the small folded note and tried to hold herself back from running out of the hall. She recognized that any more attention might just make college life a little bit harder to bare.

As she was thinking through what she was going to ask and what might even happen, she felt a gentle tug on her sleeve.

“Katie? Are you okay?”

Katie pulled herself away from the plastic imitation wood table and looked at Suzy with a frown.

“Time to go. The lecture’s over,” said Suzy.

“What time is it?”

“Two thirty,” replied Suzy.

Katie nodded slowly. She seemed reluctant to stand up.

“Didn’t you say you had to be somewhere?”

Suddenly Katie leaped up.

“Crap yes, I have to go, thanks!” She grabbed her notebook and knapsack, ran down the steps and out the door.

“What did you do?” asked Carol.

“Nothing, she was miles away. Look, she had this,” said Suzy as she lifted the carefully folded note.

The Photograph – Part 3

Link to Part 2

Katie, Carol and Suzie sat quietly in the small waiting area outside the Dean’s office. They could hear a muffled voice from inside and a shuffling noise as a chair was moved and then some pacing before silence again.

“If you’ve done something over this bloody photograph that’s got us all into trouble I swear!” scowled Carol towards Katie.

“Shut-up!” whispered Suzie.

The three had been taken from first lecture on what had started as a beautiful sunny Thursday morning.

“What’s the big deal? I was only following up on an assignment, so what’s the problem?” asked Katie as she shrugged her shoulders feeling distinctly thirteen.

“Big kid!” snapped Carol.

The door slowly opened and Professor Allen peeped through the gap. He smiled.

“Ok, ladies, in here please.”

The three stood up and walked into the office.

There was a serious looking man in his mid thirties and a grumpy looking lady that they all recognised as the nurse from the Cooper Gallery.

“Ladies, this is Peter Cooper and Nurse Williams from The Cooper Gallery. You may have met Nurse Williams,” introduced Professor Allen.

The three greeted in weak unison and stood waiting to hear what the issue was.

The Photograph – Part 2

Link to Part 1

It was a few days before Katie managed to make her way back to the gallery. She was excited. It had been on her mind every day. She was even having trouble sleeping, and would wake up in the middle of the night with the image of the young man in the photograph and wondering what was it about, who was he looking at, who was Ellie Campbell, and where was she now?

She skipped along and ran up the steps two at a time managing to lunge head first into a woman leaving the building.

“Oh my God, I’m terribly sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking of, terribly sorry!” she spurted out in a panicked tone.

“It’s ok, good to see someone that enthusiastic!” the lady said as she brushed on past Katie and down the steps.

Katie turned and pushed the heavy revolving door and stepped into the reception hallway. There was a large stairway ahead of her, two mahogany doors one at either side and to the right a small reception desk with a security guard. Just passed him was a lift.

She marched over to the desk.

“Hello, good morning! I’d like to see Mr Cooper please.”

The guard looked up with a bored expression on his face.

“You’d like to see Mr Cooper?”

“Yes please, that’s right,” she said beaming.

“And, what makes you think Mr Cooper is here, because there’s a big sign over the front door stating ‘The Cooper Gallery’ by any chance?”

She took a slight step back as she realised that her big mission for the day may not be that easy to achieve after all.

The Sitters

“Hey Cat, he’s coming, I can hear him, he’s coming! The Man Person, he’s coming, he’s coming, isn’t it great, isn’t it great?”

The Cat slowly raised one eye-lid and with blurry vision watched the young dog dance between paws looking from side to side and back at the closed-door with eye-brows shaped in a puzzled but excited way.

“I’m so excited, so excited. How long have we been here now? I love it here, it’s great, I can hear him, how long has it been since the other persons left us here?”

“Dog, we arrived last night. Remember, you were crying for an hour,” Cat exhaled slowly and closed her eyes.

“Me? Crying? No! No way, I don’t, I mean, you know maybe when, there’s been a few occasions on the couch when Step Mom or what was that, em you know the one, em…about the story….”

“Love Story,” jeez are you ever gonna get over that one?

“It was so sad…..”

“I think I preferred your reaction to Titanic!”

“Titanic, oh no, can you believe it, it just, it just….”

“I hear him again,” said Cat in a worn out eye closing sigh.

The Photograph – Part 1

“Ssshhh! Stop laughing and giggling like kids!” whispered Katie loudly, “we’re in a gallery.”

The other too looked at her and then back at each other and sniggered again.

“You’re taking this whole photo project too seriously!” replied Suzy with both hands framing her mouth.

With this Katie quickly raised her camera and caught her just before she finished.

“We’ll see!”

“Here, over here, look at this one,” said Carol.

She had moved over to a large black and white photograph of a young man sitting up at a counter hunched slightly over a coffee and staring straight at the viewer.

Katie looked at it.

“Wow, look at the expression on his face. He looks, I don’t know, sad but also glowing.”

“Oh, you think he fancied the camera man? Think he was gay? That would have been a scandal in those days, looks like an old one.”

“Excuse me?” responded Katie shaking her camera from side to side gently, “who said the photographer had to be a man?”

It was a huge print, maybe six foot by four. Katie stared at it, there was something in it, some look on his face. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a sense that he was happy just looking but also showed a sad reservation.

The Heave

There was a musty smell in the waiting area, the dignitaries were always brought through the new fresh reception. It was cold, he was a little bit excited, and nervous. These were the times when things could happen, changes that you could really feel part of and people would look back in the future and say, “He was part of that famous Heave!”

He smiled and then looked at his watch nervously. Slowly he stood up and as if not to disturb anyone, stepped carefully over to the closed-door and gently pushed it open.

“Eh-em!” he coughed towards the young lady sitting at the desk.

After a moment she looked up, but said nothing.

“I wonder will Our Leader be long?”

She raised her eyebrows with a mixture of dis-interest and no knowledge.

“It’s just that I had my appointment at 1pm. We all have fifteen minutes with him and it’s nearly ten past?”

“He’ll call you when he’s ready,” she replied and looked down at what looked too glossy to be an important state document.

A little embarrassed, Philip slid back behind the door and sat down again. There were only two seats in the small room and he was sure the next party member would arrive for his appointment at 1:15.

Suddenly the door to the corridor opened and in walked Squealer.