Photos and Chairmen

She led me by the hand into her abode. Her apartment was not unlike mine. It sported a Spartan appearance with a small adjustment to the curtains and one well placed photograph centered and above the couch. No animal greeted me at the door or called with a whimper from another room. I felt reassured in viewing this display of nothing.

“My roommate is a bit of a Nazi so forgive me if the place looks a little blah.” She apologized.

So this was the roommate’s doing. What horror would this woman spring on me? A room full of birds and bird like things? God forbid its cats. Though Bowie did leave an impression in my sour disposition towards cats and their pompous nature, he did it with a bit of flair.

“No problem.” I muttered looking about and trying to imagine what the walls would be lined with. Would she spray it pink and adorn unicorns across the walls? Maybe she would design it so that it would look as though a cherub had regurgitated while spinning on a desk chair. Maybe she was a devil worshipper and the room would be black as night lit with glowing embers from extinguished candles that wafted smells of apple pie.

Still holding my hand and dragging me through the hall we darted into her room. I tried to catch a glimpse of the roommate through a crack in the door but with the speed we moved into the room and the scant viewing port I could only make out a mess of black hair, possibly curly or recently washed.

Seattle’s room was not something I would have imagined. Along a strip of one wall in a scattered mosaic were a few dozen black and white photos from movies. On the smaller wall there were other photos framing a window. These were not just black and white, and they portrayed Seattle with friends and family in a variety of poses and situations. Some were tasteful angles and artful, others were goofy, with winks and playful seriousness. Girls stuck their pink tongues out, a few bore metallic accessories, or threw their arms round each other with their faces frozen mid excited scream.

“Fancy yourself a photographer?” I asked while my eyes wandered over each picture. The images of people taken in a moment of thought or great emotion caught my attention more than the ones filled with merriment and camaraderie.

Her room was painted a deep indigo. I imagine this is what it must be like to live within an eggplant, I didn’t voice this observation. The bed was large and the sheets were dark blue. Maybe it’s not an eggplant, maybe it’s the inside of a bruise.

“I like taking pictures.” She watched me study her hidden pleasure.

“Thank god.” I remarked as I recognized the man who bowed in the theater in a picture. He was leaning up against a wall looking off camera at something while flicking a cigarette away. It seemed to catch him in one of his non-pretentious moments, which I assume fill his waking hours. “I couldn’t imagine someone duller than a woman into economics.”She pouted for a moment and I added, “I half expected a poster of Greenspan tacked up somewhere.”

The lady blushed.