Twisted immortality

XVI - Recollections of life

Henry had to deal with one last cleaning chore before leaving home. It had become a habit. He couldn't let anyone else do it. The third floor was of course because of the painting. But he actually did love cleaning his private residence. It always had a sense like walking through history.

Every nook and cranny on the shelves in his room was covered with some kind of objects. Full of memories. It might seem like a horrendous amount of work, but it didn't feel like this for him at all. In some ways, he had developed a slight OCD couple of centuries past. Which basically meant that he had to lift every single piece up to clean it and the surroundings of it. Though tiring, Henry never thought he wouldn't want to do it or put the task on anyone else's shoulders. So once again, he walked through the history, cleaning rag in hand.

*

There were several pictures which obviously were not very well done because there wasn't much of a chance for a piece of decent equipment in the times they had been taken. Well, rather there hadn't been any developed equipment at that time yet. Sometimes Henry thought about the inventions of the last century and the way the world has moved on. It felt almost bewildering. These photos are probably the oldest pictures in the world. From around the year 1839. Of course, no one knew about them, anymore. Everyone who had were long dead.

Henry still remembers talking to Cornelius for hours upon hours of how the chemical, lighting process would should work. It took quite a lot of time to make the first picture. Henry had to ask for Cornelius to sit still for almost a quarter of an hour. It took a long time to take pictures with the first camera. When Cornelius made an attempt to take Henry's picture he was rather offended when it came out clearly better than his own. Henry teased him for quite some time, that if he only had been sitting still and had not been so fidgety. But he didn't care much about jokes Henry made.

After a time, obsession with photography waned under the pressure of his family. They wanted him to do something respectable and something that was an obvious choice for someone who had a well-worked out a way for earning a living. So, he went back to his gas and lighting company. Though Henry didn't see him after he did saw Cornelius through the company's new inventions and he appeared satisfied enough with his life. Enough to not go back with his desire for photography.

This picture actually looked like something from a different time and reality, like it is in reality too. If any photographer from present-day, would take a look at it, they would notice how bad the picture quality was. But the really passionate ones. They would surely be enthralled in the historical concept of them. It was of course one of the first pictures ever taken and only a few people had seen them up close. Of course, Cornelius's photo was published in every encyclopedia and you could nowadays look it up from Wikipedia any time. But Henry's picture had been hidden and held the secret for all that time.

Now it stood here, in a really discreet frame and under many layers of glass. To stop the overmuch lighting and the oxygen getting contact with the picture. Like he had been thinking earlier. 'Slight OCD.'

Henry was committed to safeguarding his keepsakes from his past. Even though the actions seemed a bit overly cautious. A small voice in the back of his head told him that he really needed a relationship, that it would solve the non-living collecting. But Henry wasn't ready to commit for a couple of decades just for emotional and physical satisfaction.

*

Moving from shelf to shelf Henry found something he had carried around for all his life. It was his father's watch. Henry could still recall when he took it from his father's dead body. It was this golden rounded rough-looking pocket watch. It didn't have many adornments, but it was still his. Though Henry couldn't imagine his father living in these days which were such a world away from the way they had lived together, in another time, with a different mindset. He still sometimes detected some yearning for someone who would be like a family. Accepting him in everything he did. Counseling him as someone wiser, as an authority. And then, looking at this heirloom, Henry was mystified how something like this survived all these years. Especially the time when he first went to Iran. It was the only thing he was able to save when he lost his fortune the first time.