A FLASH OF RED
By Joseph Walker
When I heard that the folks at
Polaroid are discontinuing production of their instant film, one image came
immediately to my mind – an image that I never really saw.
It was Christmas Eve. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure WHICH Christmas
Eve it was – just that I was young enough that Mom and Dad could still make me
go to bed early, and old enough that it bugged
me. From my basement bedroom I could
hear my older brothers and sisters upstairs talking and laughing and drinking
Dr Pepper. The thing is, I always had a hard time getting to sleep on Christmas
Eve. But with all that going on upstairs
. . . well, it was impossible. So I was
in no mood for nonsense when my big brother Bud came downstairs.
“Hey, Joey,” he said as he
peeked into my room. “Are you awake?”
“What do you think?” I asked in
a tone that was almost rude enough to land me on Santa’s infamous Naughty
List. “The way you guys are tromping
around up there . . .”
“That wasn’t us,” Bud
said. “That was Santa! He’s already been here!”
Suddenly my angst and
frustration were gone, replaced instantly with a heady mix of excitement,
exultation, jubilation and greed.
“Santa came?” I asked, sitting
up in my bed. “And there are presents?”
“There sure are!” Bud
said. “And there’s something pretty
exciting up there for you!”
My heart started pounding. My fingers started trembling. I started feeling that old, familiar
Christmas morning feeling.
“Here, look!” Bud said. “I took a picture of it!”
He flashed a Polaroid print in
front of me so quickly that I didn’t have time to focus. The only thing I could make out was a flash
of red. Whatever it was, at least part
of it was red.
“Let me see that!” I said,
reaching for the photograph.
“I can’t,” Bud said, holding me
off with one hand while brandishing the picture with the other. “It wouldn’t be
right. But you could ask Mom and Dad if
we can open our presents now.”
That seemed like a good idea at
the moment. It turned out not to be.
“It’s just barely past
I wasn’t exactly sure if it was
Mom or Dad making that exclamatory observation.
The voice was sleepy and angry and pretty much indistinguishable. But the message was clear.
“So I’m a little early?” I
asked tentatively.
“You’re a LOT early,” said The
Voice. “We just barely got to bed!”
“OK, I’ll check back in a
couple of hours.”
“Check back in about seven
hours.”
“Seven?”
“Yes,” The Voice
confirmed. “Seven.
“Got it,” I said, absolutely
confident that I would die of old age before
“
I turned slowly and started out
of the room.
“But . . . Bud showed me a
Polaroid . . .”
“Good night, Joe!”
“But I saw . . . red . . .”
“Joe!”
I knew that tone. It meant the
conversation was over . . . as would be my young life if I uttered another
syllable. So I left their room and
headed down the hall toward the basement stairs, pausing for a moment – MAYBE
two – to flirt with an attractive Siren named Temptation, who – I promise –
tried to talk me into going into the front room to take a peek for myself. I’ll admit I even took a step – MAYBE two –
down the hall. But I couldn’t get past
the possible long-term consequences of Mom discovering that I’d peeked. And she WOULD discover it – make no mistake
about it. So I headed back down the
stairs to begin a night-long vigil, comforted – and also tormented – by a flash
of red on a little
Even though I never really saw it.
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