The storm is gathering

I cycle home at dusk and watch the trace of a moon grow a little each day in the sky. I rummage in my backpack and pull out jumpers and scarves like intestines. I am feeling for an old camera, I found it buried  in a corner of our rickety house not long ago, halfway through a film. It's almost time to develop it.

I take a photo of the sky. Three more skies to go.

I found a couple of other cameras too, one belonging to someone lost. A treasure. I cross my fingers and hope for a photo of them on the film. I know there won't be any -no one else understood how to operate that clunky contraption so they were always the photographer, rarely the subject- but i'm excited. I'm impatient. I want to see the scenes that were snapped and forgotten -a glimpse of what their eyes saw and wanted to remember. But there is trepidation too. I put the camera aside, I don't want to rush it.

Adam Hurst - Unseen