Oklahoma Gothic

The juxtaposition of a storm on a night sky conjured their daughter to the bedroom. Her tiny frame wedged itself between them. The surfacing of fear, manifested by an echoed sobbing that accompanied their dreadful realization: what lay between them, more than a memory, but the very dress in which they had buried their daughter.

Ethan fanned the photo up and down, partly because it felt natural, partly because the house was hot, partly because he’d seen others do it. Slowly, the black space filled with form, subject. The camera was free, he doubted it would produce anything. With no one home to snap his photograph, he had raised the instrument to his face and aimed at the reflection in the mirror. What developed in his hand was proof of what he’d feared all along; it was him that lived on the other side of the glass.