id I kill the man I love or set him free?I had left Ethiopia at nineteen to model, and he was a photographer in his twenties. His name was Marco, and he was gorgeous and worldly. Dark hair, tanned skin, and honey eyes that saw more than others, eyes that saw life as beauty to be captured in a photograph. He had a few published in magazines, and I had done a few amateur fashion shows, but this was our first real professional photo shoot.

I replay that first conversation in my head a lot. He walked up to me and whispered in my ear in my native tongue, a language I missed dearly in my travels and fast-paced life. I struggled with understanding English, but he surprised me and spoke to me in my native Amharic:

ለሌሎችን ላሳይ እንዴት እንደማይሽ (“Let me show others how I see you.”)

Gently he kissed me, and before I could react, took a photo.

He guided me through the shoot, easing my nerves and encouraging me to have fun. I was internationally recognized. My saunter opened runway shows; my body graced every magazine worth doing, modeling for only the greatest designers.

I remember the first time Marco told me how he really felt. We were smoking on the rooftop during a party, a habit we shared and bonded over. Everything was wind-whipped around us. Smoke flew from our mouths.

He glanced up at the night sky, unable to look at me, and spoke.

“I love you, you know?”

He said it so plainly, so brazenly.

We always flirted; we would go out during our photo shoots, dance under the stars in Dubai, skinny dip in the Mediterranean. Amidst all the chaos that fame brought, he was my one constant— though at times possessive over me. I was aware of his love, but it had always been unspoken, safe.

“Zala, I love you.”

At the time, I was dating some movie star and the thought of real intimacy scared the hell out of me. The truth was I loved him just as much but couldn’t say it back.

I laughed. “You're such a flirt.”

I could tell he was hurt, but he played along with my ruse and laughed with me.

very few months he would visit and take a few snapshots for my magazine, and I would write something praising his talent. A short time later I starred in a Hollywood flop where I met my future husband, the producer on the film. Marco came on as the photographer at my wedding. What I remember most vividly about my wedding wasn’t the beauty of the beach, or the perfect floral arrangements dotting the ceremony, or the hundreds of guests we invited, or even the face of my soon-to-be husband glowing at me over our vows. No, I remember Marco and his camera, a catching eye that saw me for who I truly was. As he snapped those pictures of me, surrounded by hundreds of celebrating people, I felt completely alone.

After the wedding, we became distant. Years went by. He fell out of my life altogether. Until death threatened his future.

Marco called me in the middle of the night.

“I don't want to die, Zala.”

He repeated this over and over. I finally got him to tell me it was lung cancer.

We then barely left each other's side. Although in tragic circumstances, it was nice to have my friend back for a time. I’d recently divorced, moved to New York to start my own clothing line, and was lonely again. He stayed at my place where we were more than roommates but not lovers. Our hands brushed as I passed him a cup of coffee one early morning. We were waiting for the sunrise, looking out my penthouse window. We sat in the dark until the pale light emerged, the shadows moved along the buildings till the sun’s brightness consumed all.

I saw him then, saw how fragile he looked in the light, his strength failing.

“Marco.”

He gazed at me, waiting. Once more we were together, and I should have told him how I felt, but still the words wouldn’t come. My fear controlled me.

He knew. I saw the defeat in his eyes, realizing I could never say it.

I reached over and held his hand as we watched the city come to life.

He left the next day.

He refused chemo treatment, saying it was a pointless temporary fix, that he was wasting his time with modern medicine. He buried himself in his work. I’d told him there was hope and he needed to hold on to that. He shut me out and broke ties with everyone he knew. For the next three years, I only saw him through the pictures he sent me: old ruins in Norway, temples in China, photos of jungle tribes. The last photo was the negative of the first photo he’d snapped of me.

I knew he was dead. There was no news of a funeral.

I went home and took a few days off from work. There was a lighter on the table, a gift I’d given to Marco years ago. I lit a cigarette, looking at the negative of that first picture he took: black, the color that stained his lungs; white, the color of the cigarettes that took him.

I let the smoke claim the room, ruin my expensive perfume, haze my vision, leaving me only with the taste of tobacco and tears. I cried for my friend, the man I secretly loved.

One year later, I received An invitation to Marco’s posthumous photography exhibit, unveiling his final project:

BIT BY BIT

at

The Beldon, North Galleria

The man of twenty-four million photos.

Present your invitation at the door.

It wasn't just the premise that intrigued me, but the exclusivity of the invitation. News of the event spread quickly. Everyone wanted to be part of the macabre gallery. To have membership in the dead club, as it was called, was all anyone wanted. I wanted to see what he did during his last days.

I presented my invitation for entry. They ushered us into the first room. Each guest was given a lit candle and instructed to be silent until the end of the exhibit. The whole building had been rented out for the event.

A choir of men in robes with long beards sang in strange chants, their voices breaking the solemn silence. Incense smoke swirled, casting an eerie ambiance.

The hallway ceilings were dimmed, each picture highlighted along the walls, forcing me to crane my neck in every direction. There was not a space where Marco did not look upon his audience. I looked around me at the other attendees, gawking and enjoying themselves. Film directors, politicians, musicians, writers, actors, photographers, CEOs, influencers, models— his chosen, selected to witness his final work.

Every frame featured Marco, each photo a morbid snapshot of his final years. With only a few gaps, I watched the progression of his illness from the day of his diagnosis until days before his death. The first photographs showed a healthy and vital Marco, but I could see in his eyes the knowledge and fear of his mortality. My tears streamed as I walked through the exhibit, as the sickness slowly claimed my friend. He was silent and alone in his exhibit.

At the end of it all was his last photo alive, no larger than the others, suspended in the largest room. It was grotesque— he was a withered ghoul of a thing, lifeless and void. As I stared at this final frame I was hit with a burning question— why? Why had the man who’d spent a lifetime behind the camera at the end made himself the final subject? The answer stepped up to the podium, and introduced himself as the photographer.

Marco had met him in Haiti and began mentoring him. In his last three years, he’d asked for his help on this final project. Now, the photographer pledged, he would carry on the genius of Marco’s legacy.

The audience applauded warmly. All I could see was death.

I hurried out down the hall, trying to go back in time to when Marco was still alive. As I reached the doors, someone shouted my name. I turned and saw Marco’s protégé. He flashed a smile as he approached. He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me a green envelope.

“Christoph Cademus. I have a gift for Marco’s muse.”

“What is it?”

“An invitation, Miss Zala. Would you please read it?”

I tore it open. It was the negative of his last photo, the dead face of Marco, and a handwritten letter.

Dear Zala,

I hoped you enjoyed the show. This is not the end— it is the first part of something more beautiful and spiritual than I can explain now. We will speak again soon.

Love, Marco

It was dated yesterday, but I didn’t recognize the handwriting.

“Do you have the other negative he gave you?" asked Christoph Cademus.

“Is this a joke?” I nearly shouted.

“No joke, only what Marco wants. He wants you to follow me.”

He was so calm and polite.

“Who are you, actually?”

“Do you have the other negative, Zala? Before we go, it's important. We need to have both.”

“I have it hidden away. But I wouldn’t give it to you, and I'm sure as hell not coming with you."

He pulled a gun from his coat.

“If you call for help...” he said, aiming the barrel at me.

Security was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t the gun that frightened me so much when I looked at his hands, but the ring he wore, carved white bone on the ebony of his skin. I saw similar rings in Ethiopia; witch doctors used human bones as finger adornments.

“It doesn't matter. We’ll get it later," said Christoph. He sighed. “Another task for me to do."

“What do you want?” I whispered.

“This isn’t about me. It's about him. Marco wants to see his muse.”

“That's impossible,” I said pleadingly.

“Leave the impossible and come with me.”

he house loomed tall, behind iron wrought gates, tucked away in a rural part of New York. We got out of Christoph’s car in the faint light of dawn. With the gun, he shepherded me down the large path to a narrow wooden door. In the half light I saw the house, covered in moss and ivy. The windows were barred. Christoph produced a key, feeding it into a hungry lock. Polished wood floors reflected the lights of dozens of candles. I noticed the old statues, both holy and pagan, resting on every ledge and corner. I saw shrunken heads and masks hanging from beaded rope along with other tribal ornaments. A flight of stairs led us down to a room with a door made of bolted metal. Christoph placed his thumb on a little print ID pad. The internal locks pulled back and the door swung open, revealing darkness.

“Look, cut the shit,” I said. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it. I don't feel like going into your freak pit or whatever sicko stuff you have going on down there.”

He smiled, flashing perfect teeth. He placed a commanding hand on my shoulder and moved me down the stairs. I staggered down a few steps and looked back as he closed the door. The room was a wine cellar transformed into a kind of safe room.

“I leave you to it,” Christoph said.

He lowered the gun and walked over to a door on the right. A harsh crimson light poured out, bleeding into the black. He closed it, and I was left in the cellar. The light was dim, just dark enough for my mind to fill it with things that weren’t there. My eyes began to adjust. I walked around the room until I was satisfied I was alone.

Then I heard it, a low humming. Humming, whirling, clicking, skittering, almost melodic. Something had turned on in the room. Chills cracked my spine even though the room was hot, almost tropical. I saw it in the center of the room— a machine about the size of a refrigerator. It was Gothic, yet with something of a retro ‘70s sleek, like an old film projector, but more complex. It had multiple openings with one massive lens attached to a joint, as if to swivel in any direction.

There was nothing else in the room, and with nowhere to go, I was drawn to this ominously familiar object. I placed my hand on it. The lens came to life like a strange, hungry eye ablaze. A beam of light shot out. It took form, solidifying into the image and shape of Marco.

I felt myself begin to lose balance and staggered. What looked like eyes followed me, and he smiled exactly like he used to.

“You're alive?” I felt a pang of hope.

“I understand this must be hard,” said Marco’s image.

His appearance was monochromatic, like an old film projection. His voice sounded hollow and prerecorded.

My hope was quickly replaced with rage.

“What kind of a hoax is this? I swear to God, I'll make you pay! I'll sue your asses and take you for everything! I'll own this freakshow house when I'm through, too!”

I tried to avoid his transparent eyes, eyes I could see through, but which followed my every movement. I rushed to the door Christoph had disappeared behind, pounding at it furiously.

“Open the door you bastard!"

Marco’s projection spoke again: ለሌሎችን ላሳይ እንዴት እንደማይሽ (“Let me show others how I see you.”)

The dark of the room fluttered eerily from the projection, and I looked back.

“Come back, Zala, please. I'll tell you everything.”

Marco stood gazing at me.

“Why so many photos?”

I motioned to all the pictures spinning in the machine.

“If a single picture’s worth a thousand words, sweetheart, well...I've got millions. I can't let you leave, though. There’s no turning back. We have a destiny all our own. Capturing your soul will be my greatest project.”

I screamed in the face that was and was not there. No words, just pent up rage. I pushed through the projection image and was instantly stung with burning cold. I couldn't move, as though ice was spreading up my skin. The room began to spin.

I woke up unable to move. I was strapped to a medical bed on wheels and hooked to an IV. I tested the strength of the straps, but they would not budge. The stretcher rested underneath a complex frame that held a motorized camera. The camera zipped up and down, side to side, taking pictures of me every moment, the shutter clicking rapidly.

The camera never ceased. Click….click….click.

I screamed for help till my throat was sore, I took in my surroundings. The room was empty except for the bed and the camera. The camera never stopped. Click…. click... click... For I don't know how long, It never stopped-until it did.

I cried in relief.

Christoph appeared soon after.

“Why are you doing this?" I asked.

His eyes widened.

“We made a deal. If I served him without question— he can't move or touch anything as you might have noticed— he would make me his proxy and in time I can be like him. I can live forever.

“What's down there isn't alive."

“He would like to have breakfast with you.”

“Go to hell.”

His face was cold to my insult.

“It was a good session, Zala. I just want you to know, I am a really huge fan of your work.” He let out a contented breath. “I consider it an honor, capturing your soul for him.”

“Him— how can he be real?.”

Christoph leaned in close.

“He's more real than we can comprehend.”

We returned downstairs, Christoph to the dark bloodstained room, me to the thing that claimed to be Marco. The machine turned, and the mechanized symphony within the machine began to play once more.

The lens swiveled and there he was, standing as if he had always been there, waiting for me.

“You aren’t hurt from your fall, are you?”

“No, just angry at being strapped to a bed and held against my will at gunpoint. And having breakfast with a projection of a deceased friend.”

“Zala, I am sorry about what happened. You mustn’t touch me. My new state of being has odd effects on the living. Here, let's sit down.”

He motioned to a table in the corner furnished with a breakfast tray, as if he seemed happy to offer something normal to me.

I walked alongside him, and the machine's wheels churned as he sat across from me. We said nothing. I wondered if the chair would hold him or if he would fall through it, but he stayed on it as if he were not a strange light projected from a machine.

I sipped the French pressed coffee and took a bite of the omelet.

“So Christoph is a gourmet chef as well as a kidnapper. Go figure.”

“Let's get the obvious out of the way. By all normal standards I am dead.”

“Am I being haunted?”

“It's really something, isn’t it?”

He motioned to the machine.

“My secret miracle. It's incredible what engineers can do for the right price. This is just the prototype, the beginning of what I'll be able to do. I can only stay in the room now, but soon I’ll be able to travel.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. If you’re dead, how are we talking?”

Marco’s image flashed. The ghoulish face from the last pictures at the exhibit, just for a split second, jumped out in the projection.

“Are you trying to tell me that you've downloaded your consciousness onto a computer?”

“It’s not digital. Digital is death. Digital is why everything's going to hell. Why we as a species feel so empty.”

“If it's not a computer, what is it?”

“It's a device that stores and processes the photos of me. Quite simply, you are looking at the projection of my soul, all the little pieces of myself.”

I scoffed. “So your soul is possessing that machine?”

“Sound can be recorded. So can image. I realized that taking photos really does steal a little piece of one's soul, that it's the reason the world seems to be going crazy. Everyone taking endless photo after photo— we’re giving our souls away in images for vanity. There I was, being celebrated for sucking the souls out of people, taking on a vampire’s role. A picture has power. Of course it does— it holds a piece of the soul. I understood that almost too late. You yourself have faith— how many hours did I tease you for that very belief, calling it childish? I was wrong.”

“We pass on after death,” I said.

“Most. After I left you, I accepted my body's decline. I came to learn what you already believed: that God gave me a soul, to do with it as I wished. I wished to keep it for myself. If there was truly a human spirit, then how could I capture it? How could I keep it from Him, from the afterlife? All the old world religions, all the shamans, witch doctors, and monks I worshiped with in forgotten rituals— and do you know what they all agreed on?”

“What?” I asked, sincerely.

“Cameras are evil little things— lidless eyes that capture your soul. With a simple click. If the soul is like a beach, a picture captures just a grain of sand. Capture enough grains, and you have the beach. But it has to be film— film holds. It binds. And it has to be done over a period of time. With Christoph’s help, hardly a moment went by without recording my soul in photograph— over twenty four million stills, each holding a bit of me now in this machine. I had to try it on a few models before I got it to work.”

“And this is how you think life’s supposed to be lived? It’s utter torture, you sick, sick...thing. You’re not the man I knew.”

“I’m beyond that!” He rose to his feet, more angry than I’d ever seen him. “You don't understand the feeling of living between the natural laws of nature and God.”

“So you're going to kill me, Marco?”

He looked hurt.

“I’m going to make you immortal. Christoph will kill you. But first he will strap you down, and over the next few years, we’ll take photos until I am positive that we’ve collected every part of your soul. Then, only then, we’ll dispose of your old body. For your soul we have time. I was rushed, we only managed to get just enough of mine. Don't worry, it won't be the end for you. I’ll live forever with the woman who I always loved. I've always wanted you. You’re the reason this all started, Zala. The reason I stayed.”

“You aren’t really Marco. You're a manifestation of his insecurities— a copy of the sum of his sickness. I won’t be a part of this.”

He motioned to the wall, and there we both were: myself framed in youthful glory when we’d first met, he in his last sickly state, expired. Youth and death.

“There is one thing. Before I died, I had a moment of weakness. I sent you the original negative of that first picture. We need that for the process to begin. Where is it? — so I can send Christoph.”

“Go to hell. That was my real friend trying to save me from himself. That was the real Marco.”

Marco’s handsome face shriveled suddenly and sunk in, his body hunched over. A picture of him during his last month had found its way into the slipstream of his projection.

Christoph’s shadow came up behind me. A needle pricked my neck.

Back to the bed. Back to the camera. Up and down, left and right. Click click click. Click click click. Lunch. Click click click. Photos, up and down, for hours and hours. I lost track of time. I closed my eyes.

When I finally opened them Christoph was standing above me, smiling.

“The negative I asked about at the exhibit. Where did you hide it?”

My heart beat wildly. He reached out and stroked my cheek.

“I can respect strength, but you’ll have to tell me. I can see why Marco wants you, even if you are older.”

“How about I make a deal,” I said, my voice quavering.

“I'm listening.”

“Get me a cigarette first.”

“Of course. I can get some next time I'm out.”

“I have some in my purse.”

He disappeared for a few minutes and returned with it. He reached over, placed the cigarette between my teeth, and lit it up with my lighter. 

“Now tell me where you hid it.”

“After I smoke.”

I exhaled heavy streams from my nostrils. Clearly, Christoph had never been a smoker.

“Call me when you’re finished.” 

He left me alone, coughing in the adjoining room. It was then I spit that cigarette on the bed I was strapped down to. It took only a few moments, but little flames began to dance on the dried covers.

I screamed for Christoph. He burst in. 

“Stupid bitch!”

He unstrapped me, violently, not fully realizing what I was capable of. My fingernails scratched his face, and we struggled out of the room, a tumbling mess of arms and legs. He lifted me and brought me down on a dresser, one of his arms holding me down, the other reaching for another needle. I picked up a ceramic sculpture and swung at him. It shattered, and he fell. I had no idea if he was dead. It took some time to drag his limp body to the door, and soon that part of the house was ablaze. 

I picked up an iron poker and went down.

There he was, waiting for me.

“Where's Christoph?” Marco asked.

I ignored him. I went to the door. I opened it and was hit with an overwhelming stench, sweet and putrid. The room was larger than I imagined. The harsh red of the dark room hurt my eyes, bathing me in its murderous color. My face brushed against hanging photos of myself, while others were soaking in the chemical baths, waiting to be fully developed. The room was piled with boxes and boxes of photographs— victims, men and women, horror and confusion frozen on their faces. I thought of them strapped to the bed with the camera clicking incessantly. I went a little further into the room, and there I saw them, the rotting bodies of his other models. I lost the contents of my stomach.

I ran out of the dark room, up the stairs.

“Zala! Come back! Zala!” Marco called.

The house was all smoke, fire, and heat now. I smashed a chair with the iron poker and lit its leg on fire. I hurried back to the dark room.

“Stop!” Marco cried, trying to grab me. I dodged past him, pushed into the dark room, and ignited the photographs. When I reemerged, Marco stood before me with his arms open, his face beseeching.

“All I ever wanted was you, Zala, to be with you. I love you.” 

The words finally came. 

“I love you too, Marco! I always have, and I'm doing this because I love you!”

I looked past the phantasm of my beloved, at the machine that hummed and whirled with his soul. Without Christoph there was nothing he could do but watch as I smashed his machine to hell. He begged me to stop, but they were just echoes of a time past, of a man I had known and loved. He screamed now unlike anything I’d ever heard— the pain of his projected soul. I kept swinging the iron poker.

The stream of light flickered. Smoke gave him a more tangible form until he began to shift and distort from the damage. Finally, with a last heavy breath, I shattered the projector. There was a blinding flash, encompassing the room and emitting a freezing blast. I fell to my knees, coughing from the overwhelming smoke. What was left of Marco had passed on, but it had been by my hand.

Christoph was gone. The flames fed on the house as the fire department rolled through the gate. I told them I’d been held against my will but never mentioned the machine or the image of Marco.

need you to forgive me, if you really are a piece of my own trapped soul. I need you to know I’m sorry. You would have handled it differently, I know, but you are stuck in your moment and don't know what came afterwards— the compromise of love, career, regret, uncertainty, and the murder. I couldn’t do it all the way, though. I kept one piece of him— the last negative he sent me. I'll keep you both safe. I'll hide you away from that final pain. You can be together, like it should have been the moment we kissed.