Flowers from 1970 | Chadam/Banksway

The Photo

Adam lay on his bed, letting his records play in the background and staring at the wallpaper. "Why give it to me, then?" How was Adam to answer that? He gave it to Charlie because he wanted his favorite person to have his favorite thing, but all of it was so wrong. He cared about someone who didn't even exist yet. He cared about his best friend Julie too, but not in the way he did for Charlie, someone he had never even met.

"Adam?" Charlie mumbled into the phone.

"Oh-uh yeah, I guess I just don't think I'll need it in the future." He answered untruthfully.

"Hm, alright." Charlie sounded like he was scrambling to pick up more items.

In the capsule were other little things such as an old music cassette and baseball cards. After a while, Charlie saw a little canister and held it up to his eyes. He then opened it, it was dry, cracking, and expired (formerly) lime paint that was now a dark foresty green.

"What did you open?" Adam asked quietly.

"Green paint." Charlie dipped his finger in, and what he saw surprised him.

His finger broke into the hard cracked layer and into a watery, preserved lime paint that he was sure was the original color.

"I'm sure it's ugly now, right?" Adam joked, but Charlie looked at his finger covered in paint.

"No. It's perfect." Charlie had an idea.

He spilled a good portion of the can onto his hand and spread it around with a finger.

"Are you there? What are you doing?" Adam asked, but Charlie walked over to his bedroom wall.

He glanced at Adam's handprint, and with one movement, placed his paint-covered hand right next to it. The difference in sizes of their hands was interesting, along with the detail that Adam's handprint was old and cracking, while Charlie's was clean and fresh and still a bright color.

Charlie grabbed the phone with his clean hand, "Yeah, I'm here."

"What did you do?" Charlie stared at the two handprints, "Nothing." He mumbled.

"Oh." Adam murmured, "Well there's one more thing in there, taped to the inside of the capsule, you can look at it but I'll have to hang up."

"Why?" Charlie asked.

"Bye, Charlie. Have a good night." Adam bid and before Charlie could ask for an explanation once again, their connection cut.

Charlie put down the phone with a sigh and checked the inside of the capsule container. Inside was a piece of paper. A polaroid. It was of Adam. Seemingly candid taken by another person. He was smiling, with beautiful dirty blonde hair and a tall stature. He was holding a pet cat and was in the very bedroom Charlie was in at that moment. Charlie thought he was quite pretty. He was getting sleepy, and his eyes fell closed with the photo held close to him.

-

Charlie was sitting at his computer, finishing work up as he had been too caught up talking to Adam to remember doing so.

Every time he opened his computer, he always had to resist the urge to search google endlessly for Adam, but his promise not to go looking for him was more important than his curiosity.

He was rushing his project, waiting for the phone to ring. This had become a daily thing, procrastinating then laying in his bed with the phone next to him waiting for a call from a boy he's never met in person. The magic and impossibility of the whole thing had passed.

His interest in Adam and his life had made him forget how absurd the whole thing had sounded. It made him forget how far away in time Adam was. Maybe it was the fact that he had been lonely. His family had been back in England, and he had lived alone for the past 6 years, only having one or two friends who he had not even talked to in months each.