Photographs hold pieces of the soul that the mind can no longer fathom. They cannot be fabricated because they are printed in ink so that we can assure ourselves that we lived, once. By itself, a memory is fragile. When married to a glossy piece of 4x6, it becomes immortal. Film cannot lie.
My two year-old self is wary of present-day me, peering at me from where she hides behind the tall lady in the blue skirt and gray nylons. She is a time traveler, a relic of the past. The air she breathed is not the air I breathe now. We share skin cells and hair follicles but that is where the similarities end. We are not the same person, not really.
Not the same. So why do I feel guilt heavy on my shoulders, whispering in my ear that I am a murderer? A murderer for doing away with the child in the picture, disposing of her like clothes that have grown too small. The girl who wore a starched collar and a bow in her hair would never do such a thing. This girl, however, commits such atrocities almost as an afterthought. Her heart is frozen, ice water flows through her veins.
Innocence, she decides, belongs in the realm of ancient photographs.
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