24 Hour Photos – Short Story

THE more we are observed, the more we conform. So many eyes in the city, so many eyes, making contact with themselves on polished glass shop fronts, on bus windows. Watching as I wait for the man to turn green.

No shortage of eyes here, no deficit in eyes to return a glance, to judge, to monitor, to undress…so many naked bodies fully clothed.

Eyes are like pets. They need fed: images to put through the grinder giving them all they need for sustenance.

Our own little film – infallible no. Memory cells house the looked at to be recalled totally or not. Few things are as inaccurate like an eye witness cranking the projector with all kinds of fantastical film, part real, part imagined.

So many lenses, apertures, shutter rates, beliefs, focus – and lens caps left on many.

Everywhere I look I’m looked.

Safety in numbers – was that coined before or after Turing’s death?

We love observing on pavements, under gargoyles, sitting on cafe chairs, a cacophony of eyes, no need for drilled walls, these are brazen voyeurs, perhaps even from foreign lands seeing if all they heard was true, their presence hinging on that premise, to say they experienced it; felt, smelt, breathed, tasted, bought and exhaled, from tourist the shop with revolving postcard stands.

Seeing is believing, but even the blind believe without seeing, guided by the seeing.

Those pictures we take, each blink a new development – positive or negative – are all we have. I’ll keep snapping. They’ll keep snapping. Our own private vaults filling with each other: few names.

And it’s easy to forget – the animals, and ones without blinks fed with electric.