A little to the left
By eleven, the room had narrowed to the desk, the window, and the small warm places occupied by cats. One slept behind the monitor. One had taken the chair Bryce had brought in so he could put things on it. The third sat beside the keyboard, watching a woman on the screen stand perfectly still in a wind that had stopped several days earlier. Her hair crossed one shoulder. A pale strip of light ran down her arm. He had been moving that light a little to the left, then a little to the right, for longer than he cared to know. Somewhere beneath the desk, the computer continued its patient breathing. He moved the light back to where it had been. The cat beside the keyboard put one paw on his wrist.
There was nothing unusual about the photograph until he went to make tea. When he returned, the woman was looking toward the window. Only slightly. He checked the previous version, then the one before that. In all three, she looked straight ahead. He leaned closer. The cat behind the monitor opened one eye. Outside, a passing car dragged its headlights across the ceiling, and for a moment the woman’s face brightened. Not the glass of the monitor. Her face. Bryce stood very still until the car had gone. Then he moved the desk lamp. Her shadow followed it. He tried this twice more, slowly, holding the lamp by its hot metal neck. Finally he pointed it at the wall. The woman looked considerably more comfortable.
He could have called someone, but it was late, and he couldn’t think of a way to explain it that wouldn’t begin with an apology. Instead, he opened another photograph. A bottle on a pale background. It behaved exactly as a bottle on a pale background should. He returned to the woman. She was still watching the window. Perhaps she had been standing there too long. He knew the feeling. He pulled back the curtain, revealing the dark pane and the faint reflection of his own room. Three cats now, arranged behind him at different heights. Beyond them, the woman in the photograph. Beyond her, something that looked like an open door. He turned around. There was only the wall, a shelf, and a receipt he had been meaning to throw away.
At some point he fell asleep in the wrong chair. When he woke, the room was blue with morning and one foot had gone numb. The woman faced forward again. The door was gone. Everything appeared to have returned to its proper place, except the cats, who had exchanged theirs. He studied the picture. The light down her arm was softer now, and there was a small crease in her sleeve he didn’t remember. He left it. Before closing the file, he noticed three dark hairs caught along the bottom edge of the pale background. He reached toward the screen to brush them away. They were inside the photograph. Behind the monitor, someone began to purr.
