It had been at least twenty minutes already. We stood there in perfect silence and perfect stillness, staring with tired smiles at the lens of the camera in front of us. It was the idea of my wife, Caroline, to have a daguerreotype taken of the family; I thought the whole affair a foolish waste of time and money. My son, Percy, had recently turned eighteen, and gazed at the camera with his typical smug expression. His demeanor annoyed me, as it always had and always would. My daughter, Anne, was no better than him; she was younger, a mere sixteen, yet she seemed to already know how best to get on my nerves. We were not a happy family, but this photo would prove the contrary. That’s what Caroline seemed to believe, at least, and I decided to humor her. 

I was deeply distrustful of the cameraman that took our photo. Caroline refused to tell me as much information regarding his origin as I inquired for. Supposedly, she found him in the main district of Geneva, taking the photo of another couple. When she talked to him, he assured her that he was no normal cameraman; his daguerreotypes had special properties, so he said. He told her that his photos had a quality of goodness unlike any other, as they supernaturally cleansed all impure elements of the photo from it. Caroline was sold. I never believed in the same spiritual nonsense she did.

I noticed that after that terrible thing I had recently done, I had grown far more irritable. No one knew of my ill deed, nor would I ever let anyone know. Perhaps the long exposure time of the photo frustrated me most of all because it forced me to think upon that misdeed I had done, that sickening plague I had instilled into my soul with my crime. I was reprehensible for my act, yes; much worse for me, however, was perpetuating this lie, this façade of innocence, to my family and to the world as a whole. Standing there, gazing sightlessly at the camera, I felt the lie resonating from my disingenuous smile.

Finally, the sullen man behind the camera signaled to us that the photo was completed. He placed the cap upon the camera, and we were allowed to move again.

“Took long enough,” I muttered to my wife. 

“It will be nice,” Caroline said gently. “Here, let’s have a look at how it came out.” She walked towards the man with the camera, and the rest of us followed.

The man removed the plate from the camera. “It will take several minutes to develop,” he rasped, “and then it will be ready for you.”

“Excellent,” Caroline said, smiling. She was annoyingly optimistic, as she always was.

After a moment of staring at me in seemingly eager anticipation, the cameraman returned his cold eyes to the plate. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, or if he knew something I didn’t. A paranoid itch scratched in the back of my mind.

“This is stupid,” Percy said, standing next to me. “We’d waited so long already, and now we have to wait more?”

Though I agreed with my son’s sentiment, I didn’t feel any joy in hearing it from him. It bothered me, just as everything with him did.

“Hush, son,” I said. “For once in your life, be patient.”

We stood for a moment in silence. In the lull, horrid images flashed in my mind. I saw the gleaning silver knife slide into the soft flesh of the man’s neck with such ease as cutting into butter. I saw the crimson-blood spatter on my hands. I saw the paleness slowly replacing the vibrant red of his face. I saw the flicker of life be extinguished.

A sudden shrill voice flung me back into the present. It was that of my daughter. “Father, may I go to Charlotte’s house tonight? It’s awfully boring at home.”

“No, Anne,” I snapped. “You saw her last night, and the night before. You will sit at my table and eat supper with your family.” I didn’t bother to hide the hatred in my heart that was bleeding into my voice.

“Father, that’s no fair!”

“Enough! I will hear no more of it.” I turned from Anne, who appeared shaken by my exclamation, and walked to the opposite side of my wife. She did not bother to follow, a fact which I reveled in.

Eventually, the shady cameraman spoke once again, his eyes darting between us as he did. “It’s ready.”

The four of us crowded around the man and examined the fully-developed, colorless photograph in his wrinkled hands. 

The instant I looked at it, I was taken aback. My gaze ventured between the shocked faces of my family standing around me. This couldn’t be right. I did everything right, everything as I was supposed to. I didn’t move a muscle for the duration of the exposure, I was sure of it. And yet, somehow, I knew that my eyes did not deceive me.

I was absent from the photograph.

“Ha, Father!” Percy said. “This camera must show an ideal world: a world without you!”

Without a moment’s consideration, I slapped the smirk off the boy’s face.

I snatched the piece of glass-sealed copper that displayed the image and brought it an inch from my face. I scoured the photo as thoroughly as I could, searching for any hint of my presence, and yet there was nothing.

My daughter made an attempt to speak, perhaps to mock me as well, but I did not hear it.

How could this miserable bunch be so vividly present, while I had been snubbed?

“What’s wrong with this thing?” I said, my voice boiling to a yell. I shook the defective daguerreotype in the cameraman’s blank face. “Where am I? What’s going on here?”

The man did not speak, but an amused smile began to build on his angular face. As his grin widened, my anger only grew.

“Honey, please calm down!” Caroline exclaimed from across the room. “We can have another photo taken.”

I disregarded her words. I was entirely convinced that some sort of practical joke was being played on me, and I had been made the fool. 

I turned from the man that I had been making inflamed eye contact with for the past minute. In my fury, I resolved to destroy his camera, the apparatus that had created my embarrassment. I walked to where it sat on its stand and prepared to pick up the large device.

“Father, please,” I heard Anne say behind me. “Something surely went wrong in the process, just as Mother said. Come here and we can figure something out.”

Their voices were nothing to me. The violent flashes of involuntarily-memorialized imagery in my mind were nothing to me. All I knew at that moment was my bitter rage.

With no further hesitation, I attempted to grasp the camera.

My hands, as if nonexistent, passed right through the paper body of the machine.

“What is this?” I shouted. I tried again, only to be met with the same result. I felt as if the universe was mocking me, just as my abhorrent family had done moments before.

“It seems you have something to atone for,” the cameraman said suddenly; he seemed to be holding back a sneer. “Well, you did, I suppose. It’s too late for you now.”

I felt moments away from charging at the man, but before I could, I unintentionally caught a glance of my hand, and noticed that I could hardly see it.

“Oh! what is happening to you?” Caroline said.

“Father, look at yourself!” Percy added hurriedly.

I was horrified by what I saw: my hands – no, my whole body – was beginning to fade away. I was almost entirely transparent now.

I lunged at the cameraman. “What have you done to me?” I yelled. I tried to seize him by the throat, but in my attempt, I walked straight through him, as if he was merely an illusion.

“Have you killed my father?” Anne stammered. She was far from me, but I could see her trembling from where I stood. 

“He has only himself to blame for this,” the cameraman answered. “Did I not warn you of this, ma’am?” As he said this, he turned to face my wife.

“You said nothing of this!” Caroline exclaimed, taking a step towards the man.

“Oh, but I did,” he said. “I told you that this camera was special, no? Are you telling me that I hadn’t assured you that anything impure would be removed?”

The realization hit me with enough force to knock one unconscious. The world knew not of my crime; this I was sure of. Somehow, though, this dastardly camera could see the blackness seeping from my tainted heart. And, with some otherworldly force, it was doing the deed of justice that the universe was obligated to deal out.

I fell to my knees, which were now nearly invisible, and my family rushed to surround me. They spoke what was likely a great many words, but they fell upon deaf ears. My rage subsided in favor of guilt, that which I only felt now that I was suffering the consequences of my actions. The horror that occupied my mind was debilitating, and all I could do was wallow in the dissolution of my life. Silently, I looked upon my sorry family, and allowed myself to fade away.