Where Pictures Go

/ Daniel Swearingen


Sometimes you take that special photo, be it a haunt that is of forever, be it a reflection that’s you. A black and white that’s willing to bring up a specter, inviting, a curiosity that’s something you should pursue. Sometimes where pictures go, they fade right into you.

The picture is still wet from its birth, hanging by a paperclip on a string by my shirt. I know I shouldn’t be staring, for what glares back at me, are the eyes of an empty child that’s lost in time and infamy. There’s voices all around my room, an icy cold, wet touch. An unbearable force of desperateness that ask me now, “how much”? Now it screams, “HOW MUCH”?

Beyond the settlement of time and space, so far beyond these years. Further than my experience in a world that knows no tears. A calling is entered in, to come forth now this day. To bring the phantom of a child to the second window on the right, to show in vague display. It was not by choice I walked too far, or selection to go that way. It was by not, my guiding hand, that brought this camera to take.  The doorway to a million Daemons, that travel around our place. That shriek in silence inside my mind, “let us out to play”. “LET US OUT TO PLAY”!

So, it was in this determination, of other earthly spheres, that I became called upon to see the shadow by no use of smoke or mirrors. The barren holds the farmhouse, of tales of by gone days, of the daughter of the household, that came not home from play. The search of all ridge lines, nothing held her way.  Pray tell, pray tell of simple pennies on the road, that faded away.  Voices calling, saying, “Lilith’s chosen, look away”. With much more capacity now, the dark band crying “LOOK AWAY”!

The picture sits in story, it might soon drift away, out beyond my recognition to simply turn to gray. I stare into the distant forms, that reach from in their day, to complete the puzzle now, I think I know a way. To find out why those pennies led to the road, beyond the day. Why do voices call in vacuum, to take me back to that strange place. Where pictures go, the voices say, “to know, to know”, they say “TO KNOW”!

I stray from my good sense of fortune, to a darker place. In moonlight given there I stand and look at a black iron gate. From all around me summons come, the lights and something wicked runs. The picture comes from rooms above, and shadows fall beyond the child’s face. Oh, death you are not justice sworn, you come to some in uneven sums, and now I think that balance demands a pay. If it will bring the end to come, I will assist this child, this one, I bring my hand a pennies sum, a cry goes up, sings, “redemption won”. From stars above comes a deeper sound, that reigns! “Go out and play”, my child, “GO OUT AND PLAY”!

I sit alone, with the picture there, the moon shines bright right through her white blonde hair, the empty eyes turn copper in their stare, as free she fades away. She fades away.

Sometimes you take that special photo, be it a haunt that is of ever, be it a reflection that’s you. A black and white that’s willing to bring up a specter, inviting, a curiosity that’s something you should pursue. Sometimes where pictures go, they fade right into you.

Dream from 10/09/77 before all went black. – 10.09.2017 – דָּנִיֵּאל

74 thoughts on “Where Pictures Go”

  8. Pingback: Where Pictures Go — Daniel Swearingen | heatherdevono

  15. ” Oh, death you are not justice sworn, you come to some in uneven sums, ” still processing this line, which is a favorite by the way. Chilling, and great prose!

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  19. Daniel, I find your style of storytelling to be mysterious and full of visual words that keep me re-reading and looking for clues, that always tell a deeper story somehow. “Where Pictures Go” was no exception. Very well written.

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  23. Well, well, I think I have one of those pics, Daniel. I’ll look tomorrow(s), and perhaps send it to you.
    I may be only 2 or 3, but I’d like to go out and play, but evil aunt says naught, you shan’t.
    In Whitby we know we can’t…. but then we do, anyway!

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