História The Camera: P.1 - Chapter II: Snapshot

Later that night, everyone was sitting down in front of the presents under the Christmas tree. There were yellow gifts with turquoise bows, red and green wrapping paper, and more. Mark and Ashley, the two youngest kids of the family were anxious to open their gifts. Amy then asked the family to quiet down because they were all talking in excitement.

“Alright before we start opening the presents, I would like to give Susie her present first,” Amy said excitedly as she walked over to the tree and grabbed a plain brown rectangular box with scotch tape holding it shut.

Susie was sitting on the couch next to her husband Phillip. Susie and Phillip have been together ever since they got married right before the United States joined World War II. Susie was excited to see what Wally and Amy had gotten her for Christmas. Amy then walks over to Susie and gives her the big rectangular brown box.

“Here ya go Ma. It's something you've been begging us for for awhile now,” Amy hinted as Susie began tearing open the box gently with her wrinkly, shaky hands. Susie had short white, curly hair. She was wearing a dress from 1935 that she had gotten for Christmas from Phillip. Her dress was silk. The dress was homemade by Phillip who was a dressmaker and owned his own dress shop called The Perfect Match. But when the Great Depression hit America, his shop went out of business because people were too poor to afford a beautiful homemade dress.

“You didn't. AMY! Thank you so much,” Susie said as she pulled the Test Camera 1925 model out of the box. The camera was black with gold framing. It had a big middle rectangle with two quite smaller rectangle sides. It had a mount on the bottom of the camera to mount it to a tripod. It had a lens the size of a knuckle with a tiny flash stored right above the lens. The two outer rectangles had two silver buttons that were used to adjust the camera lens if needed. There was even a small button you could click to set a countdown timer on the camera.

“Uhh I think I did. You're welcome grandma. I love you. Merry Christmas,” Amy said as a big smirk on her face appeared. She was so happy that Susie liked the camera. She cupped her hands by her waist and she smiled.

“Let's take a family photo right now. You all pose, and I'll take the picture,”  Susie insisted.

So the entire family, including the two youngest children Mark and Ashley. Amy had realized that she had forgotten to give Susie the Tripod so she could be in the picture too.

“Mom. Here I almost forgot. We also got you a camera stand to go along with the camera. We also got this from the antique shop. Well we had to go back after we realized that we had forgotten the stand for it. Egor was super nice. He was sweating a-lot though. But that didn't matter. All that matters is that we're all here together on this magnificent Christmas Eve night,” Amy stated as everyone was getting ready to take the picture.

Susie smirked at Amy. She knew something sounded a bit off about that guy named Egor, but she decided to to say anything because she didn't want to fight with the family on Christmas Eve. Amy then pulled the tripod out of its super long box and set it up on the carpet right in front of the Christmas tree. Amy then grabbed the camera from Susie and set it down on the tripod. The camera’s mount and the tripod fit perfectly.

“There. Now you can take the picture with us mama,” Amy stated as the camera rested on the mount.

Susie insisted on not taking a picture with the camera. She wanted to be the one to take the picture for the family. Phillip was ready to take the picture with the rest of the family. The family got into position before taking the picture. Then Susie clicked the tiny silver button on the left side of the camera and the ticking began. Everyone smiled and looked directly at the lens of the camera.

“Three. Two. One,” Susie said as she looked into the camera's lens from behind the camera.

Then the flash brightened the room. Susie covered her eyes as the flash did its thing. When the flash disappeared she looked back over by the Christmas tree. But when she looked, there was no one there. They were gone in the blink of an eye.

“Snapshot,” Susie said to herself as she started to panic.