Colin watched as Mathewson pulled a small flick-comb from his pocket, the tiny metal blades leaving fine tracks through his silver-grey locks. He stepped back from the mirror and ran a hand through his own thinning hair.

‘What do they want from us at the end of the day? What kind of product are we looking at? Pictures? Film?’

Mathewson nodded, first at Colin’s reflection then turning to face him in the flesh.

‘Some stills, video footage if you can get it. There might not be enough, we’re not sure. If you can only pull out a few hazy black and white photos they’ll be happy. Maybe it’s better that you don’t find too much – haziness always feels more authentic. I’ll leave it up to you, Col. It’s your baby.’

Mathewson moved over to the dryer, fans whirring as he placed his hands palm-up in the hot airstream. Colin stared at his distorted image in the chrome fittings. When he was sure that he couldn’t be seen, he smiled. This project would prove his worth. He could feel the next rung of the ladder through his socks and leather soles. Promotion couldn’t be far away.

* * *

The project had come from the Tourist Board, personified in the form of Mr J. Mitchell, archivist and librarian. Colin was expecting a short, balding man in thinning tweed, and was surprised when that was exactly what he got. Mitchell tottered into the video booth on the first day of the assignment and perched himself on a molded plastic chair in the corner. He hardly spoke, and when he did he was so quiet that Colin struggled not to say ‘What?’ and ‘Pardon?’ after every sentence.
Before long he managed to forget his presence completely. He didn’t even seem to cast a reflection on the TV screens.

The project was straightforward enough, a simple case of restoring the footage provided by Mr Mitchell. He’d presented it to them as an 8mm film, mostly worn and badly patched in a few places. He’d explained its significance on the first day, although Colin felt that he’d missed half the explanation. His mind had wandered as soon as Mitchell opened his mouth.

The film was shot in a small town near Inverness in the early Sixties, although it looked as if it had been rotting in an attic since then. Colin tried to recall the name of the place, but he failed - something-haugh, he thought. Skeltonhaugh? Perhaps. He knew it was a mining village, probably built before the turn of the century and rapidly disintegrating into dereliction by the time the film was made. Every street had buildings boarded up, the road was pitted and wild as the countryside began to take hold once again. In 1969 the village was evacuated and flooded in order to provide a new man-made loch, Loch Skel-something. The village had been declared unfit for human habitation, a coal pit turned cesspit, a ruin only held together by nostalgia and a small council of locals. Now it all lay silent under fifty feet of water.

Mitchell coughed quietly at his back, reminding him of his ghostly presence before he forgot him entirely. Colin had to strain to hear his whisperings.

‘How’s it coming along Mr Geller? Are we making progress?’

He wanted to explain that this was a slow, painstaking process, that changes would only be seen on a weekly, not an hourly, basis, but he bit his tongue. To the naked eye the footage looked the same now as it did yesterday, but he knew that it was growing clearer, that some of the figures were beginning to shine through. These lives were speaking to him from the bottom of the Loch. If you filmed the booth he worked in and ran it through a projector at ten, twenty, one hundred times the speed, then you would see the changes, like a nature documentary showing flowers blooming and dying, rocks eroding into the sea. His hands and eyes would blur, but you would see this dead village pushing through into the light, struggling to make itself seen again in the world of the living. He was working a miracle here, and he knew it.

‘Everything’s coming along just fine Mr Mitchell. We’ll find you some clear footage on here, mark my words. We’ll bring these lives back from the grave for you.’

The film itself had already been cleaned, and Colin had downloaded it onto his computer, technology coming to the rescue of these primitive lives forty years too late. He sifted slowly through the footage, selecting the best shots, the cleanest images, then setting to work on them, clearing away the damage, sweeping it into the twenty-first century. The subjects were mundane, scenes of a rural life that never expected any spectators. Now it could never have them for real. There were shots of women hanging out the washing, children running errands, shops closing up for the day - without realising that they would soon close for good.

He selected another sequence and began to run the processes on it, raising it up from beneath the water. In this technological age he liked to think of it as his own brand of magic.

* * *

By the third week Mr Mitchell had started to get excited, and his occasional whispered mutterings were punctuated by squeaks of delight.

‘Oh, this is excellent Mr Geller, excellent. I never knew computers could do so much, did you?’

Colin opted not to answer the question, assuming that it was intended to be rhetorical. Mitchell was right about one thing, though - he was doing excellent work. What had been little more than black and white fuzz was now coalescing into real people, little vignettes of village life. Yesterday he’d watched footage of two small boys chasing each other up the main street time and time again, until the image had imprinted itself on his brain. He could reconstruct it now in his mind, recalling each nuance of movement and emotion, watching the dark-haired child trip fifty times on the same loose cobble, seeing the tears roll down his face as the camera stood by, recording, impassive. As it passed his gaze each time it also grew clearer, the tears on his cheeks becoming more distinct. These rare, captured moments slowly faded back into life. The boys would be old men now, but the memory of them as they were was still stored in the canister of film. It had simply been waiting for Colin to draw it out.

Mathewson pulled him aside to congratulate him during his lunch hour, steering him gently out of earshot.

‘This is a good job you’re doing on that footage, Colin, we’ve had some fine reports from the client. You keep it up, yeah? I know what they say about work being its own reward but there are other rewards too, if you catch my meaning. Keep this up, and they might be coming your way. No promises, but we believe in rewarding our best men here. Keep getting results, and I’ll see what I can do.’

Mathewson winked before he left, something he’d never done before. Colin worked an extra hour before going home that night. He fell asleep almost as soon as he stepped through the door.

As he stumbled out of bed the next morning he told himself that it’d only be a few more weeks, then he could relax. Once he’d earned the next step up the ladder he’d treat himself to a holiday. He ran the shower cold that morning, trying not to fall asleep on his feet.

The film footage was starting to enter his sleeping world as well as his waking hours. The endless loops of ten second sequences spooled on into his dreams. One minute he was watching two boys run down the main street, the next he was falling, the tears were his, spilling coldly down his cheeks. In the most vivid of the dreams he was the village baker, shutting up shop for the day, emptying trays into a bag to take home as a white wall of water descended silently on the village, gallon upon gallon crashing onto the roofs and cobbles. He watched a loaf drift past on the water’s surface. He walked home on the bottom of the Loch, the children screaming gurgled cries as they played, tiny bubbles drifting silently upwards from their mouths.

* * *

The office sat silent in the darkness. Mathewson had gone home at last, almost two hours after he was supposed to leave. The only light was a flickering image as Colin stared at his screen, searching for blips, hunting down the final imperfections.

He watched a young lady, tall, slender, as she hung her washing across a length of twine stretched between two trees. Her movements were supple and easy, possessing a grace and confidence that lifted her out of her surroundings. She picked the clothes one by one from a wicker basket, draped them over the line, clipped them into place.

Suddenly she turned to face the camera, her features showing pleasure rather than shock. A brief flurry of scratches, a storm of static passed over the picture, and then she was smiling at the lens, walking towards it with her hands held out, her mouth and eyes shining white from overexposure as she laughed.

On the surface of the screen, a millimetre out from the picture, tears began to roll down Colin’s cheeks, reflecting back at him in the darkness.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...