Elements of Time: His Name Was Bob

By Craig: Does anyone remember? His name was Bob. He stares at the camera. He is pensive. His face is hard to read, but he doesn't appear to be too happy. Why should he be happy? Perhaps he knows something that the other three people in the photograph don't know...or don't sense. Something is wrong. Or better put...something is about to go wrong. But he can't possibly know this. The year is 1945... or 1946. I am not too sure. The war is over and life is getting back to normal. Standing to his right is his brother. He saw the blank stare of combat and has survived. He seems resigned, almost happy. His hand rests on the top of the canopied chair that protects his aged mother from the sun. She has been through a lot and it shows. Her wispy white hair blows in the wind which will continue to blow long after the people in this photograph have given up their mortal cares.  Her daughter stands to her left...or right in the photograph. Her face suggests kindness. She is glad to be there with her family. However, she may not know it, but the time is short.

 

          We live a fast paced life. Sometimes we take the small things for granted. "We will always be here to enjoy the fruits of our labor" we might unconsciously tell ourselves as we continue on our course. But time passes in regular intervals. It is fair, but  merciless in it's passage and is not discriminatory. We are mere passengers who borrow a block of this infinity so that we can experience the substance of our universe. We propel ourselves forward on times linear plane. It is but a mechanism on which we ride for a brief interval before succumbing to natures calling. The 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal says it best:
"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of space of which I am ignorant, and which knows me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there, why now rather than then?"

         Time is a funny thing. We humans create an eternal paradise where we will reside forever...happy...blissful, there is no pain here, or evil. There is no mad rush to achieve the impossible in the little time afforded to us on the corporeal sphere. No ridiculous Black Friday rushes for the latest I-Pod. No sickness or disease. No war or pestilence. No greed or poverty.  It is our pathway for beating time. it is a coping mechanism. A device to conquer the inevitable! "Ha!" says Father Time, "I will have the last laugh!"

      Then there is Bob...He stands there hands unseen, perhaps his fists are clenched, like a fighters ready to do battle with the demon that awaits him on the near horizon. Only the shadowy image of his left leg can be seen behind the chair. It is bent, as if some unseen force were tugging at it from the cold earth attempting to pull him into the grave even now. Or perhaps...maybe, he is running from something. Running into the photograph because he somehow, on some level is aware that his time is short. "Hurry up!! Take the picture!! I haven't long!! Don't forget me!!"
His face says it all... furrowed, moth eaten, and already balding at 27 or 28...he will die at 30. His mother follows a few weeks later. His brother a year before him at 33.
He speaks to me even now. Through this photograph and the 5 or 6 other known photographs of him that have somehow eluded the ravages of time. How many photographs were taken of him throughout his lifetime it is hard to say. Perhaps there were hundreds...Now there are 7. Seven survivors clinging to immortality. They are all black and white...the images are distant, blurry, and hazy as if Bob himself were playing a game of hide and seek. "Wouldn't you like a clearer photo?" He asks me. "Yes! I would" I might say, and he would respond with an ironic laugh "So would I, but it has been so long that only a blur of me remains."
I watch as each of the figures in the black and white photograph are pulled into the earth until only the chair remains, sitting silently until a gust of wind topples it over and blows it beyond the scope of the scene. Everything then turns to color and the scenery changes obliterating whatever once was. I hear a voice in my head. Perhaps a vision of some surreal reality that exists only in the deep chasm of the mind. It is calling to me...or am I calling to myself.
"Although you never met me...Don't Forget me!!"
"I won't forget you Grandfather..." His name was Bob.