32 Oak Street
Roads Taken

The Disposable Camera, the Janitor, and the Bedroom Left Untouched

by LedgerLantern14 · 1mo

My parents never changed a thing. The same posters, the same crooked lamp, the same dent in the wall from where I threw a shoe at my brother in 1975.

I found a disposable camera in the top drawer. Three shots left. The film still inside.

I remembered the school janitor, Mr. Delgado, who caught me hiding in the boiler room during senior skip day. He didn't report me. He just said, 'You can take any road, but some of them circle back to the same door.'

I took one of the three remaining photos. A picture of the bedroom. The room I never left, even when I left.

Now I'm sixty-one, living in a beach town off-season with my sister-in-law in a duplex. The ocean is quiet this time of year.

I keep that camera in my nightstand. Two shots left. Maybe one day I'll take them somewhere new.

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The Disposable Camera, the Janitor, and the Bedroom Left Untouched — 32 Oak Street