The Shining Man

old-camera-and-luggage-by-congerdesign-on-pixabay

I look at the pictures every day, study them for any detail I might have missed, any clue that might lead me to the shining man.

No one else sees him — it? — even though it’s in every one. I’ve asked hundreds of people. Thousands? I don’t know. I don’t keep track. I lost count.

I’m tired, more tired than any human should be. Are we humans here? Who knows? I eat. I drink. I breathe. I hope. I just don’t sleep very much.

The shining man is real, though. I do see him. My trusty Silveroid Instapic catches him. Silveroid went out of business…when? I dunno. We weren’t here then. So many differences. My head hurts. So tired.

It’s real though. And it can get us home.

Home. Don’t think about home now. It hurts. Mom and Dad. Crazy little Lucy on the swing, asking me to watch her jump off. Daring me to catch her. I always caught her. Always.

Even that one time. The one time I had my Silveroid but the shining man was there and the light and Lucy fell through and I jumped!

I caught her but she was old and sick. This place makes her sick. It’s wrong. We don’t belong here. We belong home. In our place. Not here where the cameras are Silveroids and Lucy is dying.

No! Focus! The pictures again. I will find the shining man. He will open his shining portal and send us home.

I’ll make him.

I’m a bit late with this one, but I ask a little forgiveness and hope the story makes up for the delay. Yesterday had me running and talking to people from pillar to post. By the time I slowed down at home, it was after midnight today and by brain was cooked.

Not literally. That’s another story.

If it helps, I did write this story yesterday, more or less. I had it in my head, working out the edges and figuring out whether what was in the narrator’s pictures was the shining man or the seventh person. The former won out, mostly because I ran out of space to explain the latter. By the time I sat to write, the story was mostly there. I just needed the time to get it on paper or file down the edges so it would fit in the word limit.

I do hope you like it.

If you want to play along, here’s where you can do that.

(Photo Credit: congerdesign on Pixabay)