The Photographer

Chapter 2
Sunday delivery

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Chapter Description: The Reality Mark 2 arrives on Marcus Roberts' doorstep.

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Sunday, 9 a.m.

Marcus Roberts started the morning the way he started every morning—groggily.

After working his way from his small bedroom to the kitchen, he poured himself a bowl of cereal, grabbed the Sunday paper off of his stoop, and tore into his breakfast.

His head half-buried in the paper, where he plied his trade as a general news photographer, Marcus was startled by a knock at the door of his small one-bedroom, third-floor apartment.

Standing on his porch was a man, probably about 40 years old, if Marcus had to guess, in a blue polo and khaki shorts, holding a box.

“I have a delivery for Marcus Roberts. Are you him?” said the man.

“A delivery, on a Sunday?” Marcus said. “I don’t remember ordering anything.”

“We at Merlin Deliveries pride ourselves on service, 24-7, 365,” said the man, handing Marcus a clipboard. “Sign here at the bottom.”

Curious, Marcus glanced very briefly at the form before signing it.

The delivery man handed him the box.

“Have a great day,” the man said perfunctorily, and walked off towards the staircase.

Marcus looked at the box, still puzzled as to its origin. There was no return address, nothing to identify the sender.

Marcus’s address was printed on a generic mailing label in the center of the box, while a mailing sticker that read, “Merlin Deliveries: Packages So Fast...It’s Like Magic”, adorned the top right corner where the stamp normally would be.

Marcus grabbed a pair of scissors out of a kitchen drawer and cut the packing tape that held the box closed.

He opened the box, dug through the packing peanuts, and pulled out—a DSLR camera. A nice one, too, judging by the weight and the body construction, although the brand, the screen, and the buttons looked kind of unfamiliar. Not something he wanted to blindly try right out of the box, he decided.

Marcus kept digging, retrieving an instruction manual, a DVD in a white paper sleeve, a small camera lens wrapped in plastic, and a piece of paper, folded in half and stapled.

Marcus removed the staple and opened the note.

Dear Marcus, it read.

May this camera bring you as much joy as it has me. Watch the DVD first.

Your Uncle Bob

Curiouser and curiouser, Marcus thought. He hadn’t seen his uncle Bob since the night of his high school graduation, almost 10 years ago.

Boy and uncle had been close, spending hours on their shared interest of photography when Marcus was growing up.

In fact, Marcus remembered, Uncle Bob had given him his first camera when he was only eight years old—a cheap 35-millimeter point-and-shoot, nothing spectacular.

And now, he had done it again, after not seeing or talking to Marcus in forever. But why?

May 2003

And, now this year’s valedictorian, Marcus Roberts!

Marcus shook the hand of Kerry High School principal James Boreman, took a deep breath, and stepped to the podium.

He couldn’t remember being this nervous in his 18 years on Earth, and, certainly, he’d never spoken to a group as big as this!

The bleachers of the Kerry gym were full to overflowing with the parents, friends, and family of the Class of 2003. And he had now had their undivided attention.

Marcus sped through the usual pleasantries, thanking the school superintendent, then Boreman, then assistant principal Tate.

So far, so good.

Now, he thought, for the hard part.

“I’ve been uniquely blessed to spend 13 years with a great group of guys and girls. I may be biased, but I think 2003 is in a class by itself!” That came out cheesier than I expected, Marcus thought, but it got applause.

Now, he thought, for the REALLY hard part.

“But none of them can match our salutatorian. She’s gorgeous, she’s smart, she’s my best friend,”

Even wearing her less-than-ideally-flattering graduation cap and gown, Marcus thought that Annie French looked amazing. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled, and the shade of Kerry gold flattered it perfectly.

“This is my last night as a Kerry student, so what the heck. Annie, I love you. Will you be my date for the graduation dance tonight?”

Aaaand silence.

Marcus dared to glance to his right.

Annie’s mouth was open. Under better circumstances, Marcus would have thought it was cute. Now...not so much.

Five seconds of awkward silence was an eternity for Marcus.

Finally, Mr. Boreman saved him.

“Yes...thank you, Marcus, for....that.” Pause. Sip of water. “Marcus. Marcus! You can sit down now.”

Marcus tried to hide after the ceremony, avoiding the dance, but Annie knew where to look. She always did.

Sunday, 9:15 a.m.

Marcus put the DVD in his laptop, launching the media player, and popped his headphones on.

“Thank you for purchasing the Reality Mark 2 camera. Please enter your personal information before proceeding with this tutorial,” said the narrator in a pleasant female voice.

Marcus filled in the usual name, rank, and serial number that those forms require, and hit the ’next’ button.

“The Reality Mark 2 camera is not your ordinary camera,” the narration continued. “Settings and filters have been calibrated to give photographers exactly the kind of subject that they want.”

“Here’s an example of what we’re talking about.”

A middle-aged woman appeared on the screen, standing in front of a mirror.

“This housewife has seen better days,” the narration continued.

“That’s not very nice,” said Marcus.

“Her hair is gray. She is overweight. She has dark circles under her eyes. Bottom line...she’s seen better days.”

“Harsh, narrator. Really harsh,” said Marcus.

“But watch what the Mark 2 can do,” the narrator continued.

A graphic of the LCD screen on the back of the camera appeared, with the heading “Subject 1: Jane Doe” at the top.

“We can change the settings for her age...the number ’45’ was scrolled back to ’25’...her physical well-being...’obese’ was changed to ’slim and trim’...and much more! Press the shutter button once to lock in your subject or subjects, and hold it down to make the changes!”

Click.

Suddenly the woman had been replaced by a young professional.

She looked amazing: her hair was shoulder-length and chestnut brown, a far cry from the gray hair of the ’before’. She had lost at least 75 pounds and now had the profile of a young woman who knew her way around the gym.

Her entire demeanor had changed: instead of the slumped, bored, depressed-looking woman she had been, she now was visibly shining with the vitality of youth, with the promise of a life still with plenty going for it. Her clothes were the same, but much baggier. The blouse and skirt looked out-of-place on such a young woman.

“It’s amazing what they can do with CGI these days,” said Marcus.

“Now, you may be thinking, ’it’s amazing what they can do with CGI these days’, continued the pleasant narrator. “But the Mark 2 is real.”

“Yeah, right,” said Marcus.

“Let’s take a step back before we go forward. You can see in the top left corner of the LCD screen the settings that we’ve changed, under ’age’ and ’phys’. You can also scroll to dialog screens to change your subject’s clothes and personality. Currently, those are set at ’normal’, keeping the subject’s clothes and personality normal: they will wear the same clothes after the transformation as they did before it, and also have the same demeanor that they did in the reality of the change. For instance, our 50-year-old woman was much happier as a 25-year-old, but she’s still the same person.”

“This is very important: you will also note that ’aware’ and ’world aware’ are set to ’no’, while ’change’ is set to ’instant’ and ’photog input’ is set to ’normal’.

’Sub aware’ and ’world aware’ keep the subject and their surroundings, respectively, from realizing something has changed. ’Instant’ makes the change happen immediately; otherwise, a time-lapse can be set in the menu. ’Photog input’ affects how responsive to the photographer’s suggestion the subject is. The photographer will always be aware of what has happened, as a fail-safe.”

“Let’s change something, and see what happens.”

On the screen, the ’aware’ is selected for “Jane Doe” and moved to ’yes’.

“Again, you must tap the shutter button on the subject or subjects, then hold down the shutter button to make the change,” the narrator continued.

Suddenly, the demeanor of the woman changed.

“I’m young again!” she screamed as she looked in the mirror. “I look like I did when I just got out of grad school! Better, actually! I’m so thin! How is this possible! I was 50 years old a minute ago!”

“You’ve been transformed by the Reality Mark 2!” a voice off-screen said. Marcus recognized it: his uncle.

“Impossible,” the woman said, skeptically. “These things don’t just happen. There are rules. Science! This is a dream. It has to be.”

“Don’t like your subject’s reaction? Easily fixed.”

On the screen, ’photog input’ is changed from ’normal’ to ’suggestive’.

“Click, and hold.”

The woman still looked confused.

“I mean...how could this happen? I signed up for one of those online college courses...I was expecting a whole room full of people.”

Off-Screen Uncle Bob replied, “It’s completely normal for 50-year-olds to turn into 25-year-olds.”

The woman relaxed a little.

“It is?” she said.

“Of course it is,” Uncle Bob said. “Nothing is wrong.”

The woman relaxed completely, and smiled.

“I feel a lot better, that’s for sure. Maybe...I’ll go to the mall. This outfit is....for old people.”

“You will notice an ’undo’ option in the bottom right corner of the screen,” the narration continued.

On the screen, a dialog showed up with three choices, ’undo all’, ’undo some’, and ’undo none’.

The selected option was changed from ’undo none’ to ’undo all’ on the screen.

“With ’undo some’ or ’undo all’ selected, tap the shutter button to verify your target, then hold down the shutter button for approximately 10 seconds, until the light on the top of the camera turns green. Note that the ’photog input’ option will automatically be changed to ’suggestive’.”

Ten seconds later, the woman was back to—literally—her old self.

Off-Screen Uncle Bob piped up again: “Your class was cancelled. Not enough people signed up. You’ve only been here, in an empty room, for 30 seconds. You do not see this video camera. You will remember nothing of this session except what I just told you.”

The woman nodded, as if under hypnosis.

“Goodbye,” Uncle Bob said.

The woman snapped out of it, grabbed her purse, and walked out of the room.

“Notice: when you are finished speaking to your subject, that the word ’goodbye’ will terminate the session. You will also notice that your camera screen has changed back to displaying ’normal’ camera settings: shutter speed, f-stop, numbers of pictures remaining, and so on. This is the default setting when a subject is not selected, and is another safety feature, exclusive to the Reality Mark 2.”

“This concludes the DVD portion of the tutorial for the Mark 2. For more information on specific settings, please consult the instructional manual that accompanied this camera,” the narration finished.

This is a joke, Marcus thought. An amazing practical joke, being played by an absentee uncle.

He picked up the camera, attached the lens to it, and focused on his refrigerator.

He held the shutter button for about three pictures, looked at the LCD screen, and saw...three pictures of his refrigerator. Good pictures, but pictures of his refrigerator nonetheless.

“It’s like I always say...you can’t believe everything you see on TV,” Marcus said to himself.

Sunday, 11 a.m.

Marcus grabbed his backpack from next to his bed, opened it, double-checked that his equipment was all there, and started to zip it.

“Maybe I should take this new camera out for a trial run,” Marcus thought. “Those pictures of my refrigerator were nice and sharp. Couldn’t hurt.” He stuck the Reality Mark 2 in one of the side pouches of the backpack.

The newspaper office was just a few blocks from his apartment, so Marcus took advantage of the warm October morning to get some exercise in.

Sundays were always quieter days at the paper: the sales people only were there on weekdays, and most of the salaried employees took the day off, too.

So only two other people were in the newsroom when Marcus got there: crusty crime reporter David Smith, whose office was down the hall, and the other photographer on the staff besides Marcus, Samantha Wolfe.

Marcus always behaved professionally around the office, but his eye couldn’t help but wander towards Samantha, whose workstation was across the aisle from his, every once in a while.

Samantha Wolfe was a few years older than Marcus, about 30, and had worked at the paper since graduating from college.

She was a redhead with a fairly trim figure, shown off well even by the simple T-shirt and jeans she was wearing today. Her husband had left her a few months ago, and she was still in a bit of a funk, detracting from her usually upbeat personality.

“Hi, Samantha, how are you today?” Marcus asked casually.

Samantha sighed. “Not bad, considering. I received the divorce papers from Will’s lawyer in the mail yesterday. God, it would be nice to just get through this and move on with my life.”

Marcus didn’t really know where to go from there, so he settled into his work.

He reached into his bag, looking for his memory card to download some photos from his Saturday night assignment, and grazed his new camera.

He heard something click, and pulled the camera out of his bag to make sure he hadn’t damaged it, or left it on and drained the battery.

Even though he’d sat through that whole DVD, he was still surprised by what he saw.

At the top of the screen, Samantha’s name was written in bold white letters.

Below it, the ’age’ option read ’32’, while everything else was at the default setting, just like it had been when the woman was first selected on the DVD.

Marcus’s skepticism was starting to erode.

He selected the ’age’ option, and scrolled with the wheel until it said ’20’.

Marcus left the rest of the settings alone.

He held down the shutter button.

Click.

He looked up from the screen to see...a younger Samantha! It had worked!

Her red hair was fiery, and down to her shoulders. More freckles dotted her face. Not that she was fat before, but her clothes were clearly baggy, especially the T-shirt.

Samantha fanned herself with her hand.

“Like, it’s kind of hot in here, Mr. Roberts. Don’t you think?” she said, sounding a bit ditzy. “I don’t know WHERE this shirt came from. It’s, like, two sizes too big, don’t you think?”

Marcus was stunned into silence.

“Like, it’s sooo great that I was able to get this internship as part of my college classes. I’m going to learn sooo much here this summer,” she continued, knotting the fabric of the too-large T-shirt and tightening it around her stomach. While the change didn’t show any skin, it was clear that Samantha had a great figure.

“Samantha...you’re not in college,” Marcus stammered.

“Yes, I am, silly! State Class of 2014!” she said,

Amazing. Reality had changed to accommodate the new Samantha, Marcus thought.

Someone knocked on the door behind Marcus; his heart leaped into his throat as he whirled to see David Smith, the crime reporter, standing in the doorway.

“I thought I heard another voice in here,” Smith said. He pointed. “Who’s the new girl?”

Marcus froze. But Samantha didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

She bounced up to shake David’s hand.

“Hiiii. I’m Sammie Grapes. I’m interning with the paper this summer, and Mr. Roberts was kind enough to agree to show me around the office today, since I’ll be working with him. It’s sooo great to meet you.”

Again, reality took care of things: David had no idea that this eager young college student had been a 32-year-old staff photographer, someone he had worked with for years, just minutes earlier.

“Well. Carry on, then,” David said, leaving the room.

Marcus’s hands were shaking. He looked at the camera screen again, and scrolled to the ’undo’ options. What if I couldn’t fix this, he thought? What if Samantha was College Co-Ed Sammie forever?

He picked ’undo all’, tapped the shutter button, made sure that ’Samantha Wolfe’ was still at the top of the screen (it was, even though ’Sammie’ had used her maiden name when introducing herself), and held down the button for 10 seconds.

Marcus saw the green light, looked up, and saw good old 32-year-old Samantha Wolfe looking back at him.

He tried to remember what his uncle had said on the DVD after undoing Mousy Housewife’s transformation.

“Um....you will remember nothing that happened after I got here. Goodbye.”

Samantha blinked, as if she was coming out of a daydream.

“When did you get here, Marcus? I don’t remember hearing you come in.”

Inwardly, Marcus cheered.

His uncle was a genius.

 

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