The Card
by Josh Kenzer
As Craig entered his cramped apartment, he threw his keys into the bowl on the end of the counter, pushed his bike past him, leaned it against wall, and hung his helmet on a hook above the bike. He headed straight for his desk, his bike shoes clicking on the linoleum floor of the kitchen as he walked. The small desk sat against the wall, tucked between the small entertainment center and the outside balcony wall. Since he’d found the card on the edge of the sculpture, he had been antsy to get home and check it out.
Earlier, he waited in the atrium of Monadnock Building on Market Street as his next delivery was prepared. Waiting was antithetical to the bike messenger’s desire to ride, but, at least, the buildings atrium was serene, unlike the rush of humanity outside. He reluctantly sat on the edge of a large bronze sculpture, his knee bobbing up and down with extra energy.
Craig started to think about lunch. It was only 10:45 am, but he had rushed this morning and only grabbed a granola bar. There were great restaurants around this area, but his pay wouldn’t afford him such luxuries. Besides, who wanted to eat with the pretentious pricks in the financial district? He would save his money, eat food that didn’t quite measure up, and spend the free time reading the latest Stephen King novel he had downloaded to his Kindle last night. It was something about a dome over a city. It seemed everyone was talking about it.
With his plan in mind, he relaxed. He focused on the largeness of the atrium. The height and emptiness made for an awesome echo chamber. There were a handful of bronze sculptures including one of a women’s arms outstretched and another of a man’s hands by his side. The one he was sitting on – he became aware of the idea that it may not be OK to sit on these things – was a large rectangle with increasingly smaller rectangles stacked on top of one another until it leveled off . This pyramid-shaped sculpture had a large brass ball and a tall pillar on the top. Falling across the pyramid was a large triangular cone that spanned from the top to the bottom where its sharp top pointed down at the floor. This is where he spotted the small Eye-Fi card. The distinct orange card was very conspicuous and laying out in the open next to the cone. He looked around in earnest for someone who may have dropped it, but in truth he was all too eager to pocket it.
Craig had considered an Eye-Fi card for his own camera. The small SD memory card was capable of wirelessly transmitting files from a camera directly to pre-configured websites like Facebook. It was gimmicky really, but being the gadget geek he was, he couldn’t resist. He was also curious what pictures might have been left behind by the neglectful owner. He let his imagination run a little. Homemade porn? Maybe some girls-gone-wild shit? He was grinning as he left the building.
Messengers were paid a pittance, but he loved the freedom of being out on his bike every day; no desk job would suit him. Some guys were riding to pay college tuition or because they were fitness geeks. Not Craig. He had a passion for the job.
His chosen profession meant he couldn’t afford to buy Eye-Fi cards on a whim. It had taken him a few months to save up the $200 for his Kindle, so he was ecstatic with his $100 find.
As he sat at the computer, he slid the Eye-Fi into his card reader. The computer immediately gave the familiar “badoop” sound letting him know the card was ready for browsing.
As expected, there were hundreds of images. He noted the timestamps of the images. The jpeg files were taken in bursts: 10 on one day, 12 on a different day, and so on. The file names gave no indication as to their contents, so he started with the oldest group, dated two months back. With nervous anticipation, he started to flip through the photos.
They were rather pedestrian and he felt a tinge of disappointment. The photos tracked a young, but tall, blond women in a long jacket as she walked down the street. As he flipped, he followed her from a safe distance. Then the girl noticed him. She began to look hurried and nervous. He felt like a pervert spying on unknowing prey. Two images later, she ducked down a long narrow alley way. Craig started to feel anxious, but he kept clicking the next arrow.
She turned around and was facing the camera, not more than an arms reach away. In the next image, Craig noticed a gun pointed at her head. His right index finger felt limp and defied his will to press the mouse button. He summoned the strength and immediately regretted it. She was lying on the dirty asphalt of the alley, the left half of her face a bloody pile.
“What the fuck?” Craig said out loud as he jumped up in disbelief. Craig’s heart was racing. His head was spinning. This wasn’t what he wanted to see. He started pacing around the apartment. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt the perspiration on his forehead. His mind was racing with questions: What should he do? Should he call someone? Call the police maybe?
He sat back down and questioned if he should look at another set. Maybe this was a sick joke or an elaborate hoax. He had spent enough time on the photo sharing site Flickr to know that photographers go to great lengths to set up scenes. Maybe what he witnessed was just a staged stop motion action scene meant to elicit the exact response he just had.
Still, he was hesitant to find out. For a few moments he stared at the file names and dates on the screen. Without announcement, a new file appeared on the card shown in the Explorer window. It was dated that day, but timestamped from mid-morning. Soon after, another file appeared taken a few minutes later.
Obviously the Eye-Fi card could transmit photos it captured, but Craig did not believe it could receive files as well. However, unless his eyes betrayed him, he was seeing image after image loaded onto the card. There were now 15 new images.
With the first set of images being pushed out of his head by this anomaly, Craig slowly moved the pointer over to the first new image and double-clicked. To his wonder, it was a picture of him sitting in the atrium from this morning. The next image showed him finding the Eye-Fi card. Then him looking around. Then him pocketing it.
Craig started flipping through in lightning succession. His anger grew as he realized who ever had taken the photos in the atrium had followed him around all day. There were photos of him at lunch, running afternoon messages, and then en route to his apartment.
A funny feeling rose in his stomach as he saw himself pictured riding up to the outside of his building. Bile rose to his throat when he got to the picture of himself entering his apartment. How was this possible? He clicked to the next photo of him taking a seat at his computer. This from the same perspective as the previous. It had to have been taken from the balcony. He turned in his chair in time to see the flash of the camera and hear the deafening sound and that was it.
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