Fragments by Alana Graffam

I don’t know why, I cannot remember now, but I stole a photograph of yours. It was in your bed table, under a pile of miscellaneous objects, next to the vicks vapour rub I was looking for. I did it quickly without even thinking. I look at it know and cannot imagine what possessed me. It has no personal value, it does not remind me of anything at all. I just liked the various white and orange spotted cats on top of rocks. When I looked at it then, it was an incredible photograph, but now I observe it and the cats seem sad, underfed, skinny out of proportion. Do they miss their original owner? Were they always like that? Do you miss them? Maybe it did have some kind of value to you. Maybe you felt safe with it. And I took it, with no purpose. Now I have it hidden, I cannot look at it anymore, it does not belong to me. But neither does to you. I would say sorry but I am not, you have stolen things of greater value from me. It was not revenge, though. It was a thoughtless act, and now, a meaningless photograph.

My dad always loved taking photographs of us while we were sleeping. I don’t think he did it because we looked angelic in any way - quite the opposite in fact. Our mouths were always wide open, our arms entangled uncomfortably around our own bodies, our legs bent in such a way that it made us look weirdly disproportionate. Looking at these pictures one always had the feeling that we we were not only snoring loudly but that we were also not resting. Instead of sleeping it looked like we had collapsed into unconsciousness. The best photographs were the ones where we were all in one bed sleeping - all intertwined into one monstrous being with three heads. But a second glance to these photos and you could also see that we loved each other even though we would be at each other’s throats once we woke up. Another glance and one is dying to know what we were dreaming about, if maybe just maybe, we were all part of each other’s dreams.

There is a dream that keeps coming back to me. I wake up in my little brother’s bed. He had already gone to school but when I pulled the blinds open it was still night. I was very confused and went to the balcony and there it hit me; it was an clipse. Only when I gave it a closer look, it was a full moon next to a fiery orange sun with no rays. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and no one seemed to care. I suddenly felt alone but so amazed at the beautiful, magical scene. Even though I tried, I couldn’t keep my eyes away. The buildings started disappearing and suddenly I was lying on the ocean water, admiring the sun and the moon against the pitch black sky. I could see them reflected on the sea, immersed in stars.

Now, I’m at the balcony, in the middle of the night (my second night in Puerto Rico) and I close my eyes. I try to listen to every sound; the coquis, the occasional car passing by, the dog scratching the window with its paws, the loud voices of a group of people crossing the street, the alarm go off on the parking lot, the wind rustling the leaves of the palm trees, the catcalls of men to the ladies on the corner. If I try really hard, I can hear it, there in the distance, in between those two large condominiums, the most mesmerizing sound; the waves of the ocean turning on themselves and unfolding at the banks of the sand. To me it always sounded like the music of the vast unknown, infinite to my eyes yet full of mysteries deep in its breath. It relaxes every nerve in my body until it makes me feel microscopic, it makes me see how big the world is and how glad I am to be in it. In my dreams and in reality.