Peter Loftus lives in Ireland with his beautiful partner Hilary. In 2005, he was longlisted for the Aeon Award run by Albedo One magazine. He is a regular reviewer for Interzone, and has written for the British Science Fiction Association and Big Issue. By day, he teaches English as a foreign language. He spends the rest of his time writing, or thinking about writing.

The bottom was falling out of the box. Gregor grunted and made a dash for his desk as photographs cascaded across his feet.

“Damn, damn, damn.” The box, having shed its load, collapsed completely in his arms. Gregor glanced at the door to his office to make sure nobody had seen him, then, knelt and began gathering up the glossy prints.

Most of the photos held faded grey and beige studies with white frames. Trench-coated men in black spectacles beside chrome-trimmed sedans. Women with bad skin smoking cheap cigarettes. Two children with soot smeared faces throwing rocks at a discarded TV. Scattered glass in sugar crystals at their feet. All stills from a bad arthouse movie.

Gregor pulled a bent colour picture from the collage of images. It was of a man in a patterned tobacco-coloured sweater. His black hair leapt from a cruel side parting, burst horsehair from a broken down armchair. He was twenty-three in that photo. Back when he’d just graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kiev. The youngster in the photo was going to be the biggest photographer of his generation. He was going to New York to live in a penthouse with bead curtains for doors, and Faye Dunaway hanging listlessly over the arm of his sofa, bored with the ennui of their success.

Gregor put the photo on the edge of his desk and set to work scooping the photos into a pile. He’d always meant to put them into albums, but there hadn’t been time. No, he thought, there’d been plenty of time. Just no point.

His fingers caught on a strap. The Yashica. His boyhood friend. Memories danced in a spring shower of lost sweetness as he pulled the 35mm out of the mound.

“Gregor!” Sergei’s face appeared around the corner of the door, took in the scene and frowned. “What are you doing, I want you to help me to put the trailer on the car.”

The sun disappeared behind a solid bank of cloud, and Greg felt the sudden chill cutting through his thin cotton shirt.

“Come on, man, I want to get back today,” cursed Sergei, tugging so hard at the trailer that Gregor almost lost his balance. A ring of children watched solemnly. They knew better than to act up when Sergei was like this.

Gregor wrestled the housing onto the bar and pressed down. He was rewarded with a heavy clunk as the pieces mated. Sergei, by way of thanks, squinted at him, spat, and folded his lanky body into the car.

Gregor washed the smut and grease off his numb hands, and returned to his office. Only to find the camera was gone.

It took him three days to find the camera, and when he did, it was only because the thief was using it right in front of his face.

He was walking along the corridor that ran past the girl’s rooms. The windows there were high and wide, and let in the best of the weak morning sunlight. The corridor also had the best view of the courtyard.

And it was in the courtyard below that he saw Alex goofing about with his camera. Alex, at sixteen, was one of the older kids, and had a reputation for being a bit of a magpie. So that wasn’t what shocked Gregor. Alex was aiming the camera at the bit of waste ground that had been marked out for the new classrooms. He was kneeling down to frame a spray of wildflowers that grew at the edge of the concrete driveway. And that was what shocked Gregor. Because Alex was blind.

Alex heard Gregor coming, and stood up quickly, hiding the camera behind his back.

“What the hell are you doing with my camera?” Gregor had stopped a couple of metres short of the boy. His experience told him that if he got any closer, Alex would figure out his position and bolt.

Alex held his face up to the sky and grinned.

“Don’t give me that idiot grin. Give me back my camera!” Before the last words were out, Gregor lunged, catching Alex by the arm. He squeezed the muscle beneath and was rewarded by seeing Alex wince and begin to squirm. He snatched the camera out of the boy’s grasp.

Alex’s hands shot out immediately, scrabbling for the camera. “No Gregor! Don’t. Please!” he said.

“How many times have we told you not to take what isn’t yours?"

Gregor was halfway back across the yard when he heard the boy: “Bastard.” Too far away to give him the cuff he wanted to. So he let it go.

Gregor opened the plastic bottle and held it to his nose. It smelled alright. Checking that the black polythene was firmly sellotaped around the doorway, he popped the latch and the back of the camera flipped open. He wondered how old the film inside must be. Seven, eight years, easily. Back then, he’d always kept a roll in the camera, just in case. So this film had probably been blank when Alex stole the camera. Bathed in red light, Gregor wondered why he was bothering to develop it. After that long in the camera, the film had probably degenerated quite badly through that minute leakage of photons that always occurred.

The thing Gregor most loved about photography was watching the picture come slowly into being, like a ghost becoming more and more substantial with each passing moment. That, and the thrill of finally seeing the picture. Finally seeing if he’d framed the subject properly. If the composition held up, if the light was good.

What he saw when he developed Alex’s photos made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. All at once he felt giddy and nauseous, and suddenly far too hot in his makeshift darkroom. Alex had taken twenty-four pictures, and each one was better then anything Gregor had ever seen in all his time as a photographer.

As soon as they were dry, Gregor bought them outside, so that he could examine them in the natural light of the gothic arched windows. The first five were of the wildflowers that grew from the cracks in the edge of the yard. The next ten were of bloodrusted leaves that had blown into rifts at the base of the dormitory wall. In the picture, the leaves curled and crackled like a memory of flame, the rich dark humus of their belly wriggling with beetles and worms.

Gregor held the last of these as close to his face as possible, until his vision blurred and his head swam. How the hell had Alex taken pictures like these on eight-year old film? It was impossible. He’d need special lenses, and probably a filter, not to mention eyes!

Taking a deep breath, he let the photos hang by his side. His heart was racing, and he felt the need to cry…or maybe laugh. He turned to the remainder of the pictures. The last few were of the flowering vines that grew along the trellis of the old car port, and they beggared anything that Gregor had ever seen before. At this time of year, hummingbirds came to feed on the vine, tiny flashes of slate grey shot through with highlights of iridescent viridian. Alex had captured them perfectly: here as bows of moving colour, there as multihued stars on a diadem of lambent leaf.

Gregor put out his hand behind him, and back into his chair. His legs, newborn, couldn’t hold him. How? The word swam through his mind like a mantra. How had he gotten so close? How had he seen so clearly?

He reached into his drawer with fumbling fingers and drew out a new roll of film. Then, picking up the Yashica, he went to look for the boy.

Alex was out behind the school building, where the other children seldom went. He liked to come here and listen to the susurrus of the wind through the trees. It was a place of birdsong, too. Alex knew of twenty-three types of bird that came here. Some drifted past on the late autumn breeze, whilst others, plump and secretive, hid in the bone-bleached stalks of long grass.

He heard Gregor coming and smiled. Above, clouds amassed, ready to charge the far-off mountains.

“Alex!”

Alex didn’t answer, but waited, still smiling, as Gregor puffed closer.

“Alex!”

“Don’t shout. I’m blind, Gregor, not deaf.” It was one of his favourite lines.

“I printed those photos you took.” Gregor waited for an answer, and getting none, continued. “How did you do it?”

“How did I do what?” Alex asked.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

For a moment, Gregor thought the boy wouldn’t answer.

“I don’t know.” Alex smiled. “Sorry.”

“I want you to have this.” Gregor reached over and placed the camera in Alex’s hands. He didn’t know what else to say. “Bring it to me when you have used up the roll.”

“Trust me, Nikolai, these pictures are the best thing I’ve ever done. You’ve never seen anything like them.” Gregor had waited until the corridor was empty of children before he made the call. Alex wasn’t the only one who liked to wander about the place. A dozen others: Sascha, Anna, Felix, all were capable of turning up behind you at any moment. He wanted his act to be unwitnessed, to be alone with his guilt.

“I can’t get you any kind of deal without seeing the photos.” The voice on the other end of the line was terse.

“I understand that, but once you see these pictures, you’re going to want to get them in print as soon as possible, believe me.”

“Why don’t you send me a selection? If I like what I see, I’ll come out there late next week.”

“Ok. I’ll see you then.” Gregor hung up, and even though he was alone, his cheeks were burning.

“Ah Gregor! Just the man I was looking for.”

Gregor backed against the wall, pulling back as far from Sergei’s nicotine-stained face as possible.

“What are you doing skulking about?” His breath was sour as an old toilet brush, sweet with decay.

Gregor closed his fist tight around the roll of Kodak ASA 400, hoping Sergei wouldn’t see it. The last thing he wanted was questions. “I was going over to inventory the medical supplies. We’re running a bit low…”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sergei waved his hand dismissively. “ I’ve got to town for…” he searched for a word, then, settled on “…something.” ‘Something’ was either Lotti, a young Belorussian prostitute with a stomach of iron, or a litre bottle of palenka. He grinned, foxlike. “Stay near the office in case anyone calls. The nosy bastards are dying to catch me out.”

Gregor nearly ran in his haste to get back to his office. He couldn’t believe his luck. Sergei would be in town for the rest of the evening, which meant that he could develop Alex’s second roll of film straight away.

Gregor felt Sergei at his back before he heard him.

“What are you doing, you sneaky bastard?”

Gregor spun around, feeling the colour rising in his cheeks. Like a child, he hid the photograph he’d been examining behind his back. “Nothing…”

Sergei lunged forward and snatched it from his grasp. He held the photo up and cackled with vodka-soaked delight. “Ha ha, too quick for you, wasn’t I?” He squinted at the picture with bleary eyes.

Gregor was appalled. Sergei had come back hours early. Had Lotti finally gotten some sense? Unwilling to risk tearing the picture, Gregor made no move to snatch it back. Instead, he stood silently.

Sergei peered at the photo for a long minute, teetering gently. “You didn’t take this,” he said. “I’ve seen your work. You’re shit.”

Gregor stayed in his office long after Sergei had gone to bed. Through the bleached, parallel lines of Alex’s birch trunks he could hear his boss’s laughter. It was perhaps the first time ever that he agreed with Sergei.

“That’s great! See you then.” Gregor replaced the grey bakelite handset, and clenched his fists in triumph. Nikolai was coming. And when he saw the third batch of photos, he was going to be knocked into orbit.

Just then, little Sascha appeared at the door. His grimy face was smudged with tears and he was rubbing his eyes with the tattered sleeve of a hand me down jumper. Gregor went down on one knee and put his hands on the child’s shoulders.

“Are you going to send Alex away?” he sobbed.

Gregor felt a sudden blast of ice surge through his veins. “No, of course not. Why?”

“Because Sergei told the man about Alex.”

“Wait.” This was the last thing he needed, and after what had happened a few nights ago, the first thing he should have expected. Gregor knew that Sergei had been too quiet the next day. “What man?”

“The man on the phone. Sergei said that you gave a camera to Alex, and that Alex took the photos, only he can’t because he’s blind.”

“When was this, Sascha?”

“Just now.”

“And who was Sergei talking to?” Gregor asked, although he already knew the answer. His brother. From the program in Kiev.

“It was his brother. Sergei said they could come and collect Alex tomorrow.”

Gregor could have bet money that they’d come before Nikolai. Sergei’s brother was part of a little-publicised program to recruit and train psychic operatives. He cursed Sergei. He cursed himself. How long had his dream of fame been resurrected? Not even a week. And, the worse thing was, he knew what he had to do.

“Don’t worry, they won’t take Alex.”

The little boy looked doubtful.

“Just trust me. And don’t tell anybody about any of this.” Gregor made sure Sascha was looking him in the eye. “If you tell anybody, then the men will take Alex. Do you understand me?”

Sascha nodded, squirming to be released.

“Do you understand me?” repeated Gregor.

“Yes,” squeaked Sascha. And then he was gone.

The palenka he’d lifted from Sergei’s desk scoured his throat like acid. But at least it kept him warm, and numb. Right now, it was important for Gregor to be numb. Gregor sat in Alex’s spot, behind the main building. The birches swayed gently in the breeze that sighed through the silver grasses.

He’d heard shouts from the common room, Valentina calling his name. She’d have to herd the kids to bed alone tonight. Gregor was too busy. He had a grief to nurse, and a self-loathing to cradle.

The children usually went to bed at nine thirty. Routine was kept rigidly, as it fostered security, or so they taught. Valentina took the girls, and Gregor the boys. Every night, Gregor knelt the boys beside cast iron beds older then they were, and led them in their prayers.

But tonight, Valentina had done the job. The children were just blessing themselves when Gregor stormed into the dorm. Valentina turned, relieved to see him. Until she smelt the odour of home made vodka on his shirt and took in his expression.

“Gregor.” Her tone was flat, in an attempt not to alarm the children. “You look a bit tired. Why don’t you get an early night, and you can see the children in the morning.” Seeing that Gregor was about to speak, she added, “Say goodnight, children.”

“Goodnight Uncle,” chorused the boys.

“It’s not ‘goodnight’,” slurred Gregor. He pushed past Valentina.

“Gregor,” she warned. Staff weren’t permitted to appear drunk before the children. It upset them, and rightly so. Many of them were orphans of families torn apart by palenka.

“Shuddup!” said Gregor, louder than he meant. One of the smaller boys began to cry. Gregor didn’t hear him. He reached Alex’s bed.

Alex was clutching the camera to his chest, hot tears stinging sightless eyes. Not stopping to wonder how the boy knew what was going to happen, Gregor grabbed the strap and yanked it from him.

“Where are the other photos?”

“Bastard!” hissed Alex.

Gregor smacked him, hard, on the cheek. I owed you that for the last time, he thought. His toe hit something under the bed.

“Gregor! Get out of here before I call Sergei.” Valentina was ready to deck him.

Gregor knelt, and found it. A shoebox containing Alex’s share of the photos. What did a blind kid need with a box of photos anyway?

He took the box, leaving Valentina to quiet the boys, Alex’s insult still ringing in his ears.

Bastard.

Gregor drained the last from the bottle and flung it into the bushes. He didn’t need it now, anyway. The leaves were dry and caught quickly, and soon, the old oil drum was blazing.

Like an old drunk throwing cards into a hat, Gregor flicked the photos into the fire, one by one. It never ceased to surprise him how much light the photographs gave off when they burned. It was as if the light they had captured was released again, while the pictures themselves blackened, bubbled and curled.

The next morning Gregor awoke feeling and looking ten years older. Not bothering to shave, he put on a clean shirt and shuffled out to breakfast. The boys gave him a wide berth. They’d had enough cuffs from Sergei when he was hung-over to know that they should stay out of the way.

“Excuse me,” he said, reaching past Valentina to get to the coffee. She moved to the side without glancing his way.

Sergei, when he showed, had the strangest reaction of all. Instead of taking Gregor aside and tearing a strip off him, he just smiled, a stump-toothed leer of triumph. As far as Sergei was concerned, Gregor was about to learn his lesson.

Alex sat alone on the long table to the left. Unable to see his own expression, he seldom bothered to control what his face was doing, and now, it was portraying abject misery, grey above a cooling bowl of lumpy porridge.

Nikolai turned the photos over with ill-concealed disdain. “These aren’t the ones you sent me Gregor.” He plucked one of Gregor’s ‘modernist studies’ from the pile and wagged it in his face. “I was with you when you took this. Look.” He stabbed the photo with a finger like pale bamboo. “It’s the administration building in The Academy of Sciences in Kiev.”

Gregor nodded dumbly. He felt like a schoolchild receiving a scolding.

“Where are the other photos?”

“They’re all there.” Gregor swept his hand across the pile, noticing for the first time how badly it was shaking.

Nikolai paused and stared into Gregor’s eyes. Finally, with a sigh, he let his gaze drop. “Whatever. Did you get a better offer?”

“No. I… I mean, I didn’t send them to anyone else.”

“If I see them published elsewhere, I’m going to come back down here and ram that camera up your ass.”

Gregor made no effort to respond. He deserved what he was getting. He’d been planning to use Alex’s pictures as his own, after all. He just wanted to get it over with.

“Right.” Nikolai dumped the pictures on the desk and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on. If you sort it out, call me. You owe me, you know. Right?”

“Yeah, yeah, alright.”

“Making me drive three hours for nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever.”

At least he had the decency not to slam the door on the way out. The way Gregor’s head was throbbing, he felt like it was going to explode.

It was early afternoon when the heard the car pulling to a halt at the main door. Within seconds, the windows were decked with children of all ages. In this part of the world, the bigger and blacker the car, the more important the visitors, and this was one very large, black car.

Sergei was out like a shot, almost kowtowing to the two men in rumpled suits. The darker of the two, his brother, gave a hint of what Sergei could have looked like if time and fate had been kinder to him. The other one was older, with that off-cream hair that hinted at jaundice. He crushed a cigarette into the gravel and followed the two brothers into the building.

“So, have a seat, have a seat,” said Sergei, ushering the two towards his office. “Valentina will fetch you a tea, unless you want something stronger.”

The older one looked to Sergei’s brother, Feodor. Gregor hung on at the door. They’d call him soon enough, so he may as well be here.

“No, no, we have to be back by dark,” replied Feodor. “Just bring us the boy and show us the photos.”

“Gregor!” Sergei squirmed in his seat. “Ah there you are. Well? You heard him. Bring in Alex and the photos.”

“What photos?” asked Gregor.

“The photos you had the other night. Don’t try that one. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Gregor led the two men into his office, where almost every photograph he’d ever taken was stacked in a pair of cardboard boxes by the window. Sergei followed after like a bad smell.

“Are these the photos the boy took?” asked Feodor, indicating the boxes.

“No. I took them,” said Gregor.

Feodor looked Gregor long in the eye, then, gestured to the older man. Taking his cue, the older man knelt and upended both boxes on the floor. Photos slid out to form a mound in the floor.

The older man, Yuri, took a pen from his jacket pocket and used the end to trawl through the pile.

“These photos are all years old,” said Yuri.

“Where are the ones Sergei saw you with?” said Feodor, turning to Gregor.

“Everything I have is here. I don’t know where Sergei got the idea Alex took photos. The boy is blind.”

“Get me the boy.”

Sergei dragged Alex down to the office.

Feodor, from his place at Gregor’s desk greeted the boy. “Hello Alex. You know who I am, don’t you?”

“No Sir.” Gregor noticed that the boy had addressed the wrong part of the room. Strange. He usually did a god job of triangulating a speaker’s position.

“I’m from… the government. I’ve come to see your photos.”

“They’re upstairs.” Gregor’s blood froze. Surely he’d burnt all the photos? What the hell was Alex doing, helping these people? They wanted to take him away for God’s sake.

When Alex returned to the office, he was holding two pictures. One, in creased sepia was of a man with handlebar moustaches in military uniform. The other, more recent was of a young woman in wearing a floral print headscarf.

“What are these?” Feodor looked at the pictures in disgust.

“My grandfather, Sir, and my mother.”

Feodor threw the photos on the desk. “Ok, everybody out. Except Sergei.”

Gregor hustled Alex from the room, feeling weak with relief. The rest took only minutes. Yuri stood across the way, picking at his nails with a match, while Feodor told his older brother what he thought of being dragged into the middle of nowhere on a wild goose chase. Alex, listless, now that his part was finished, shook off Gregor’s hand and drifted outside.

The door to Gregor’s office was pulled open, and Feodor stalked out. He looked at Gregor. “I trust we will not meet again, my friend.” The threat was implicit.

And then they were gone.

“Gregor, get in here.” Sergei.

Gregor glanced down the corridor. Valentina was there, holding back a crowd of curious youngsters. She flashed him the ghost of a smile.

“Gregor!” barked Sergei.

Gregor felt a strange mixture of fear and elation as he entered the office. Sergei flew at him.

“I’ll make you regret tha…”

Sergei never got to finish his sentence, because that was when Gregor punched him. He flew backwards as bright blood spattered from the wound.

“If you make any trouble for that boy, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.” Gregor’s voice was flat, calm. It left no room for misunderstanding.

Gregor left Sergei on the floor of his office, white and shaking, cradling his nose.

Gregor found Alex out by the birches.

“Alex. They’re gone.” Alex looked at the ground, not bothering to answer. “I think in future, your photography has to stay between us. I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t want them to take you away.”

“It’s ok,” said Alex.

“Here,” said Gregor putting the camera into the boy’s hands. “I put a new roll in it for you.”

Gregor reached across and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. Then, he turned and went back inside.

Alex remained outside, turning the camera over in his hands. Two quicksilver swallows darted loops of white neon above the trees. He ran his fingers through the cool stalks of grass and brought them to his lips. They dripped with a glistening moondew of energies. All around him life forces swam, painting silvered bows on the black canvas of his mind. He basked in the sweet liquor of those energies, drawing them in with his fingers. Drop by drop, he poured them into the lens of the battered camera, and thanked God that he could see.