The Photograph - One Moment, A Thousand Stories

The 'Photograph' is a short fictional story in the spirituality/inspirational genre. 

A photograph captures a moment. But what did it miss? The emotions behind the eyes. The thoughts of the person holding the camera. The lives unfolding just outside the frame. 

This episode explores the idea that our waking life is like a photograph, vivid, real and radically incomplete. And that in our dreams, we see everything the frame left out. 

An original immersive audio story with music, sound design and voice performances. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

You're listening to Serena Grassa Podcast. If you would like to support my work, you can do so at buymeacoffee.com slash Serena Grassa. The next story is called the Photograph. That awful noise. The electric water fountain was supposed to be soothing, but it was nothing of the sort. Angela crossed her legs and then uncrossed them again. Restlessly, she grabbed a cushion that was next to her on the sofa and propped it up against her back. Why was there no clock on the wall in here? She thought. Perhaps it was because time most definitely passes slower in a doctor's waiting room. A muted silver slick frame housed a photograph, perhaps from 20 years ago, of a younger-looking version of her gynecologist. With a smile from ear to ear, clutching her diploma in her two hands and a graduation cap on her head. Resting against a stool, carefully positioned and angled towards the camera. A moment in time. Was her doctor still that happy today? Was she genuinely happy when the flash of the camera went off that day, or did she just force a smile like we all do for a professional photographer? Alone in the photo, but I'm sure she must have been accompanied that day, Angela thought. Proud parents, siblings, classmates, many possibilities. It would have been a day to celebrate, no doubt. To qualify as a doctor was quite an achievement. Nonetheless, to do the work and to be the giver of bad news must not be easy. If the news was bad, she would not start crying. Not into the doctor's face, anyway. She would force herself to not feel the pain of it until she got home. She would just say, Okay, thank you. Get up and walk away. That would be the easiest way to handle the situation, she thought. What if the news was good though? Would it be weird if she hugged the doctor? Angela looked at the photo once more. The doctor looked like a person who liked hugs. Funny that, she thought in amusement to herself. It's just a photo. How on earth was she interpreting if the doctor was the sort of person who liked to hug or not? Just from that. Can a photo emit an emotional energy, even if it was taken 20 years ago? If so, would it be the emotion of the person in the photo at that time, or would it be their emotion right now, all these years later?

SPEAKER_04 3:11

Angela, please come in. Take a seat, please. Thank you. How are you? Good, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

And you Angela slammed the words out in an attempt to hurl the small talk forward. I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I realize you're probably eager to hear your test results, so let's get into it. Angela held her breath. I've reviewed your hormone test and your ultrasound. They are indicating that your egg reserve is higher than average for your age. In cases like this, what I advise is to try to impregnate naturally first. Then, in three months' time, let's review your situation again and consider if we should proceed with alternative methods. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Angela blurted out and halted herself out of the chair. Suddenly, tears started to stream down her cheeks. Before she knew it, the gynecologist was holding her in her arms, and Angela was crying onto her shoulder. She patted Angela lightly on the back.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

It's okay. It's okay. I understand these tests can be emotionally intense.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Oh, how embarrassing, Angela thought. She was given good news, and here she was bawling. Yes, thank you. Angela blurted out, rounded on her heels, and head out the door. Back in the doctor's waiting room after Angela was gone remained the photograph. Waiting there patiently for the next person to notice it. One moment in time in the doctor's life seen through Angela's perception. The story it didn't tell to Angela was that the doctor's father had failed to show up that day to see her graduate.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Even though the main reason she studied medicine was to gain his approval.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

While it didn't tell that story to Angela, it told it every day to her doctor. Sometimes the doctor looked at it, and instead of feeling reminded of what she had accomplished in life, she felt rage. Rage towards her father for how unseen he made her feel. Many miles away, in a lawyer's office, stuffed in a drawer, lay a smaller version of the same photograph. It was stuffed in the drawer purposely, as looking at it made the owner feel a flood of guilt. The owner of this copy of the photograph, as you can imagine, was the doctor's father. Once, his secretary, while sorting out his office, had offered to frame it for him.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

I can sort that drawer myself.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

He snarled at her, and in that moment his secretary felt a pang of sympathy for his daughter in the picture. And somehow intuitively thought to herself, he probably didn't even make it to his daughter's graduation with all the hours he works. One simple glance at the photograph had told her exactly what it represented for the doctor. And not only did she interpret that, she also intuitively guessed the reason the lawyer had snarled at her was that he felt guilty when he saw this photograph. A photograph can't capture the thousands of stories that are really going on when it was taken from all the different perspectives of those involved. One perception of one story at one moment in time. Some of us pick up on something bigger, like in the case of the secretary, bleed-throughs, shall we say, knowings without explanations, sentiments without being told. We have an opportunity, though, each night when we dream, to tap into the thousands of other stories, possibilities, perceptions, and moments. In Angela's dream that night, she saw her doctor crying. The doctor cried on Angela's shoulder. The photograph flashed up of her with the graduation cap, but it wasn't on the wall in the doctor's waiting room. It was in some large, luxurious-looking office with leather plush chairs. Weirdly, there was tears streaming from the doctor's eyes in the photograph. Angela then heard a thud, almost like a drawer slam shut, and she woke up with a jolt. How odd, she thought, reflecting back over her dream in the first few seconds of waking. Why did I have that dream? I guess I was very ashamed about my crying yesterday. And Angela shrugged off the dream and stopped thinking about it. Not even realizing in the magnificence of her dream, she had in fact picked up on the stories, the other perceptions, the sentiments that the photograph didn't tell.