The Traveller Effect (LGBTQ+)

0 ✖ Polaroid Pictures

The old Polaroid photos gave off the smell of ash and soot and what I imagined the scent of sunflowers were, if they even had any smell. It was the smell of light and a warmness. It held tight at my heart like a heavy and comfortable blanket wrapped around my frail body in the middle of winter; or perhaps it was more of a cage, like the ribs surrounding the emotions trapped in my chest.

Or perhaps it was just the ink, sending my mind spiralling as if the fumes got me high. These photos I had tried to keep in the best condition over the years, close to my heart where they would be safe. Unfortunately, in my prime youth and later when I had forgotten more and more where I placed my possessions, most of the photos of that wondrous time had gone missing. Now, only three photos remained.

But they were the most important.

I had never been known for my photos; in fact, I had never been known for anything. My entire photography career boiled down to the assumption that all my images were fake. Staged. Forged. A fraud.

If only they knew the things I had seen; what I had experienced; what I had felt. My soul had been touched. Rather, I call it touched, but it had been so much more. I had been ripped apart, broken down until the pieces of my life were scattered across the globe, only to be reformed and shaped into something unrecognizable to the human race. What I was now, I do not know. I still appeared human and I had no distinguishable features indicating otherwise, but I will be damned if I was still the person I was before.

Before I met them.

If these photographs of mine make it to be published to humanity someday, still in my lifetime or the next, I wish to caption it as the stages of which our journey had taken place.

Descend. Distance. Despair.

It was not a pretty story. Nowhere near, actually, but I now fully understand how something can be both a blessing and a curse, how the horrible things in life can one day be the cause of something incredible. Maybe I was referring to the domino or butterfly effect – no, that is something different - or perhaps I mean karma. Chaos theory? Entropy?

Maybe I should stop grasping at science I know nothing about and just give it a name myself:

The Traveller Effect.

Maybe in my prime, I could have written a doctor's thesis on it had I not ended up a farmer (or had not been too poor to even properly finish mandatory high school). Maybe my only challenge then would have been that I held no interest in science whatsoever. I had failed the subject with a miserable grade.

Regardless, the Traveller Effect has affected no other human being besides me. That makes me an expert in the field, right? I am the professional. I am the specialist.

I am alone.

The three photos were laid out in front of me on the coffee table. My back had degraded so far over the years that I could barely reach for them. My trembling fingers gripped at the one, 'Descend' written in dripping ink at the bottom that will probably fade far faster than the rest of the picture.

The pure fiery emotion of the photo shone through and had me feeling the fear of all those years ago all over again, the adrenaline in my body rushing up to make my heart pound like a drum.

I had been beyond terrified.

And strangely, even though I know they are long gone, I still am.