Pro Foto 1.8.2
by Paul Revis
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Prologue
David Lenaweil woke early following a fitful night of attempted sleep. The latest of many such nights of horrifying dreams, awakening bathed in a pool of sweat, shaking from fright for several minutes before looking out of the massive bedroom window.
The sun had just begun to rise over the hill upon which David’s mansion stood. Most of the important details had been taken care of the previous day, and only a few loose ends needed to be dealt with. He should have been calmer this morning, but he wasn’t, and it made his decisions easier in some perverse way.
His most prized possessions, at least those of any true value, were packed neatly into sturdy cartons and marked with the address of someone David thought would benefit from, or at least appreciate, the contents. Other cartons contained odds and ends, things not so valuable that he thought could go to some second-hand shop. Having looked one up in the local telephone book of a small town a few miles away, he decided to donate several boxes to that facility.
Turning to a large painting on the wall, David grasped a corner of the gilt frame and pulled, revealing a wall safe behind. He spun the dial left and right, and left and right again, jerked the handle and opened the heavy steel door. Inside lay a common steel cash box, which he slid with some great difficulty across the metal floor of the safe, gently placing the heavy box on a sturdy wooden table. Unlocking the flimsy lock, David peered inside, assuring himself that it was still filled with magnets, very powerful magnets.
“These magnets didn’t work,” he mumbled almost inaudibly, “they should have, but they didn’t. Slowed it down, though. Should have stopped it. Maybe more powerful magnets. Too late now.”
“Havisham!” he shouted. No answer. He went to the intercom, pushed the button and repeated his demand for the butler. A few seconds later came a discreet knock on the door, and Havisham entered as he was bid.
“Sir?”
“Havisham, I’m going to be leaving today, and I want these boxes to be delivered as marked. This box,” he said, pointing to the steel cash box, “is to be buried in the ground.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Buried. Deep. The deeper the better. See to it personally. I’m counting on you to carry out my request in this matter. It is of the utmost importance. I’d have done it myself, but I don’t have the time now.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Havisham, the slightest hint of a smile tugging at the butler’s lips.
“I know it’s early, but take the rest of the day off, and take Bridget with you. Go on a picnic or some other frivolous thing. Just go and enjoy. You may go now.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Havisham with a slight bow before disappearing in that mysterious way butlers have.
* * *
“It is time, Miss Bridget; he has asked us to leave for the day. He suggested a picnic.”
“A picnic? How proletarian,” replied the maid with a toss of her long, blonde hair.
“They each have their own way.”
“I suppose a picnic is at least polite. The last one just yelled at us to get out. That wasn’t polite at all. I didn’t mind having that one go away.”
“We should go now, Bridget.”
“Yes, I suppose we should. Let the master get on with his move.”
* * *
David Lenaweil watched while his butler and maid loaded the trunk of the modest automobile he had provided for them. Several rather battered suitcases and assorted cardboard boxes filled the back of the car. Before entering the driver’s compartment, Havisham turned and looked toward the window. Their eyes met briefly before the butler closed the door and started the engine.
Lenaweil watched until the dust from the retreating car settled once again to the earth. David threw open the window of the third-story bedroom and felt the cool morning breeze touch his face. Solemnly he surveyed what was his: the hundred acres of rolling land, the pool, the ornate brick courtyard below. He turned and retreated into the room a short way, turned again and ran toward the open window, his arms outstretched in a perfect swan-dive pose, and then jumped through the portal to hell.
* * *
Three hours later, the modest little car returned, and Havisham walked across the pockmarked ground toward the broken-down shack. Rummaging through the pile of empty boxes in the dirty living-room, he retrieved the one he was after. Digging through it, he found the metal cash box, pried open the lid and removed the top layer of powerful magnets and then tossed them into the rubble that was the prized possessions of one David Lenaweil. Retrieving the contents, he replaced them in their original carton and added the battered cardboard box to the container marked with the name of the second-hand shop.
“Very good, sir,” he mumbled, and returned to the vintage Rolls Royce that awaited him.
* * *
Pro Foto 1.8.2
“What I need, Mom, is a program like Photoshop so I can make these pictures look better,” said Ted, looking up from his older model computer into his mother’s tired eyes. “I don’t need that one exactly, ’cause first, the newer programs won’t run on this computer anymore and, second, I know we can’t really afford the two hundred dollars it’ll cost. Maybe I can find a deal somewhere on an older program.”
“I don’t know, Teddy,” replied his mother quietly, “maybe we can save a little every week and get you something. We’ll see.”
Teddy’s eyes lit up at the thought of doing something new and creative.
So they saved, each of them. She, from the little she made as a waitress and bartender and Teddy, from mowing lawns, doing backbreaking yardwork for the wealthier neighbors and, in the winter months, shoveling snow.
The digital camera Teddy had won at the school fair wasn’t of the finest quality, but the name promised good service, and the warranty backed that up. Young Ted had spent the entire week snapping away like a madman, photographing everything worth looking at and many things not worth looking at until the boy downloaded the photos onto his computer.
Their savings, his mother’s and his, had netted them a grand total of one hundred and twenty-five dollars.
“I’m sorry, Teddy,” said his mother, shaking the wrinkled bills out of the jar in the cupboard. “There just wasn’t enough money sometimes. We had to eat.”
“I know, Mom. It’s okay, really!”
It was okay of course, but Teddy still looked dejected as they made their way into town to Mr. Miller’s second-hand shop.
“I just might have what you need,” Mr. Miller had said over the phone when Teddy called earlier. “Don’t know how well it’ll run with your equipment. Not much of a computer guy, myself, but if it don’t run right, you can always bring it back. I will make that exception for you, Theodore, because I know you are an honest boy.”
“Two dollars,” said Mr. Miller handing over the program in its battered but original box. “Old and obsolete computer programs are almost impossible to sell. Most folk just toss ’em,” he said with a smile at the quizzical looks of young Ted and his mother. The boy laid two crinkled dollar bills on the counter and read the back of the box.
“Pro Foto 1.8.2 contains all of the utility of Pro Foto 1.5 but with updated features and a little added magic from the skilled minds of the Whizzo Software Corp.” Or so said the box. Teddy was convinced.
“It says it will run on our computer, Mom, look!”
“That’s wonderful, son,” said his mother, who was still looking with some disbelief at the kindly old Mr. Miller.
“It’s okay,” Mr. Miller said with a smile. “It really is tough to get rid of these older computer programs, and frankly, it was in a box with some other stuff that I paid next to nothing for. Besides, I like Teddy. He’s a good kid. Take it and have a great day.”
* * *
Teddy read the entire instruction packet by the time they had reached home and couldn’t wait to load the floppy disks, one at a time, into the older machine. The hard drive rattled and whirred and ingested the information. An icon of a simple stick figure appeared on Teddy’s screen when the downloading was finally done. Teddy eagerly clicked his mouse on the icon, and the program booted up. No errors. Smooth as silk, just as the box said it would be.
“It runs, Mom!” hollered Teddy. “I knew it would, and it does!”
“That’s great, Ted,” she returned, trying her best to sound enthusiastic while knowing that at thirteen not much kept her bright young son’s interest for very long. She was sure he would go on to find something else to occupy his time quite soon. Girls, maybe.
“I can’t wait to see your first picture,” she called, suddenly hoping the photography bug would bite him hard. The “girl thing” could wait at least a couple of years. Ten years would be even better.
* * *
The first photograph Teddy put into the program was that of the family car. A fifteen-year-old beater whose better days had ended some thirteen years earlier with the first large dent in the hood after a good-sized tree branch had fallen on it during a storm.
The owners never bothered to get it repaired after the insurance company paid out on the claim, preferring the cash to a pristine car. Nor were they concerned about the following injuries that seemed to plague the otherwise faithful machine, so that when it came time to sell, Ted’s mom could afford it. She hated the way it looked, but it ran well, and that was the important thing. She called it the “Crapmobile” and wished she could do better, but there wasn’t enough money. There never was, it seemed.
Teddy looked at the photograph, zoomed in on the dents and the minor rust holes, sighed to himself and began to work the magic the program instructions promised. The dents smoothed, bits of chrome returned, the rust holes disappeared and, just to show what he could do, Teddy took out the back doors, making the sedan into a two-door coupe and then added his version of the latest and fanciest wheels. That took some time, he found, getting the spokes just right, and then he had to add the rim bolts, but it was worth it. The boy sat back and looked at his work.
“Not bad,” he thought, “but still ugly. That baby-poop green has to go. Red would be better. Mom looks good in red.”
He chose red from the pallet and began to color in the car, lightning some places and darkening others, adding highlights to the new chrome until the barely legal old wreck actually looked like a car someone would be proud to own.
Teddy chose “save as” and entered “our new car” into the title box and hit “save.” That way, he could put the two photos on the screen at the same time. A sort of “before and after” effect, which is what he did before calling out to his mother, “Come and see my first picture!”
Dutifully, his mother came into the boy’s room, pulling her waitress uniform down over her hips before entering. The hard drive was still whirring. Longer than usual, Teddy noticed.
“I’ve only got a couple of seconds, Ted; traffic is terrible this time of day and I’ll be late if I don’t hustle.”
“I just wanted to show you my first picture. You said you wanted to see the first one, and this is it. See? It’s our car. All fixed, and I painted it red too!” he exclaimed proudly. “This is the way it used to look, and this is the way I made it look. Pretty neat, eh?”
“You did this with just a picture of the “Crapmobile”?
“Yup.”
“This is good, Teddy. I mean it. This is really good. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that in our driveway?” She stared at the two pictures for a while until the “before” picture seemed to fade ever so slightly. “Wishful thinking,” she said softly.
Teddy grinned at the praise from his mother. “Better get that hustle going, Mom,” he said. “See you when you get home.”
“Yah, see you when—”
The “before” picture was fading even more.
“Is it supposed to do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Fade like that. I mean, I’m no computer expert, but shouldn’t that picture stay the way it was?”
“Yah, it should,” said Teddy slowly, “I wonder what the problem is. It isn’t supposed to do that. You gotta go, Mom. I’ll work on it. I just hope this program doesn’t have some kind of virus or something. It was a used program after all.”
By that time Teddy’s mom was already out the door, hurrying toward the Crapmobile. She jumped into the car, jammed the key into the ignition and twisted it, hardly noticing the uncharacteristic roar of the engine in her haste to make it to work on time. Nor did she notice the subtle changes in the color of the machine when she slid it into the usual parking place and hustled into the restaurant with only minutes to spare.
* * *
Copyright © 2020 by Paul Revis
