TITLE:FAYETTEVILLE
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Jasper stood up, letting his camera fall back
down into his chest. He looked down at the
screen of his camera as he scrolled through
his new yellow pictures. Standing in the
middle of the road with the yellow blinking
light flashing above his head, he suddenly
was somewhere else. He went too far in his
gallery and the memories started rolling like
a supercut. It was pictures of his best
friend: Natalie. She was dating Derrick, the
cheating hot-head. At this point, everyone but
Natalie knows about Derrick cheating on her.
Jasper's secret was that he loved Natalie....
The way they laughed. The way they were like
puzzle pieces. She loved puzzles... Jasper
hated them, but he would solve them with
her. Natalie was the girl out of his reach. She
was with the "bad boy," and he didn't think
that would change.
He also didn't see the person in the red
hoodie behind him. But then, he heard a car
coming from the left. Up the hill, the lights
pushed up the incline to show the wall of the
building on the corner. The Coca-Cola mural
glowed in the headlights.
The person in the red hoodie freaked out .
They pulled the strings of the hoodie tight to
hide their face even more. The light was
trying to seep through the hoodie and onto
their face. Jasper turned around to see them
hurrying away.
Strange , he thought. He brought his camera
up to his face as fast as he could.
Snap . A photo.
The left of the image was framed by the red
brick and the Coca-Cola mural. The lights
from the car made the subject of the photo
shine. The person in the red hoodie. It was
like a rare, mythical creature captured on
film. Like the Patterson-Gimlin film of
Bigfoot. The photo of the Lochness Monster.
But, Jasper didn't know what he had just
taken, or the danger he was in.
He looked down at the photo. Wasn't good
enough. Exposure's off , he thought. He was
always so critical of himself, and he put his
finger on the delete button.
"Hey, kid! What are you doing?"
Jasper looked up at the car, still in the middle
of the road.
"Can you move, please?!" the guy in the car
yelled out the window.
"Oh! Sorry!" Jasper zoned back into reality.
He stepped to the side of the road, letting the
car pass. He turned the camera off and
walked to his car, leaving his "bad" photo still
in the gallery.
He may not have liked his photo, but it made
him think. It popped a question into his head:
who was that?
