Jane was an exceptional illustration of what a woman was: a magnanimous soul, a benevolent heart, and a sense of empathy only another female could appreciate. She was a picturesque sight to behold, with a face rounded with beauty and delicacy. Her lithe body structure made it so each of her silk gowns would hang limply off her like wilting flower petals attached to a weak, dying stem. She wore only pale shades to complement her concerningly fair complexion, which made her dark, thick hair the most striking of all her features. Her cousin Bernard had unearthed her façade of womanly charm through a camera lens. Each picture he took peeled more layers of her away, and today’s snap was no exception to her deception.
Jane stood with her back against a towering concrete pillar. Her hands were hidden behind her back as if she were struggling to keep a secret between them. The craning of her neck made Bernard more certain that she was holding the weight of secrecy. She appeared uncomfortable as she stood, almost as if she wanted to be in a different position. Still, she could not come to this whim as something coerced her to stand in this manner. Bernard observed the setting next to the pillar. A great wall carved from the same bright stone created a backdrop for a menacing shadow at the edge of Jane’s dress, where her petite feet were hidden underneath. The shadow was sharp and appeared like a perfect triangle covering half of the wall. Perhaps it was a cruel way of life showing the duality of Bernard’s cousin; the piece untouched by the shadow is what others saw in her, and the other was her truth, which he had come to know.
Jane felt that strange feeling of being watched. Bernard ducked down. He clutched his camera tightly, praying his cousin didn’t spot him. His chosen location, a rocky hill, was perfect for capturing the ideal shot with the perfect angle to create something dynamic and give him plenty of options to hide.
Jane was a rather peculiar woman—one could even say bizarre. She refused to have her photo taken. Her refusal wasn’t polite or even reasonable. She would screech out an appalling sound until the camera was no longer in her presence. She wouldn’t even accept being in the same room with one. The presence of the machine that worked off the principles of light and electromagnetism could never cross her path.
Jane’s oddities didn’t end there. The woman was always separated from others. She had no friends, no lovers, and very few family connections. She lived in isolation in a small apartment with no other living soul; not even a mouse would be present. She had very little furniture and belongings and stated that she ‘only wanted her breath to be the thing that filled her property’s empty space.’ Bernard always found the way that Jane used her words to put him in trepidation, even if the reason for her eccentric and strange ways was known to him. She was not pushed into this life but rather open-heartedly accepted the separation from the world. She descended deep into herself, or rather into something she didn’t even know the true face of.
Bernard’s cousin had always been deathly quiet around others, and her mannerisms were slow to come to fruition. Still, no one seemed to notice or care that her behavior had worsened when her father committed suicide. If her face retained the perfection of an untouched porcelain doll, that was all that mattered. Bernard remembered the death of his uncle vividly and had also felt an arcane decline in his life. Even so, he wished to remain on the side untouched by the shadow—a side filled with lustrous joy, with happy, gay souls to be surrounded by. Where Jane chose to waltz into the shadows without a second thought about the effects abandoning the world would have on her. She thrived on the sensation of separation. The harrowing pain that had no human explanation beyond the thought of your soul being sucked away and replaced by ash and emptiness was as in feeling. Jane had become a sort of masochist, feeling she needed the pain to stay alive so as not to follow her father down the serene, cool waters of salvation. Jane wanted a life of punishment as a reminder to never remain in the light, for the light will burn you and suck your soul away in the same manner as the dark. The light is not to be trusted as it never tells or shows the blistering burns on your body. If Jane’s father had seen the burns, he could have run to the shade rather than to the pool of sweet, sinister salvation.
Bernard knew the truth about his sweet-smelling cousin, who was far from a delicate, demure flower and more closely resembled a mighty, sturdy evergreen who provided shade for all. A tree that would continue to grow despite how others perceived it. A tree that would grow, never fall to the ground, and bask in the adversity life planted near it, even if its methods were outlandish and unorthodox. Bernard wondered if Jane could see the truth as he had through his camera’s lens. Regardless of the thought, Bernard continued monitoring Jane, unknowingly capturing her as she was inattentive in the exact direction of himself.
Once Jane had spotted the uncanny, perfectly curved cliff on the mountain, her eyes never left it. She thought she was as this rock was. She and this piece of the world were one and the same—both completely untied to the places they had been placed by the hands of God. Objects that were forced to be what everyone, even the divine, expected them to act as involuntarily. Jane felt a kinship to this piece of the earth. She was an empty vessel, nothing more than a fleshy container that could be filled with whatever it was forced to consume in order to conform. She could mask any emotion to perfection, whether that be simple things such as joy, lust, and anger, or more complex feelings like revulsion or even contentedness. She was capable of giving a telling performance.
However, feelings have little to do with perfection, and when they cross paths, people begin to question sincerity. Jane had experienced this when she was younger. Her façade was far too good, and she came across as mechanical and lifeless, as if she were nothing more to this world than an unwanted subject of a living portrait. And ever since the boom of the camera, she could never escape her truth from slipping out, as the lens of a camera never lies about its subject, no matter how seasoned a human fraud they were.
