Negative Balance

I walked in expecting to inventory cameras. I walked out unable to speak. She answered the door in silence, eyes like failed photographs — soft, chemical, waiting to disappear. I saw debt, despair, and something else behind it. In the darkroom, she didn’t just develop film — she stripped her sorrow frame by frame. She made me forget the job. For one hour, there was nothing but red light, skin, and the sound of a shutter long overdue. I caught it all.