Pirates

January, 2013

I am running up the driveway with Rhys and we are dressed as pirates, or something. We’ve been at a fair, and we are pirates – screaming and argh-ing to my father who runs backwards with the camera to capture us in our fearsomeness. It is the sort of dedication I overlooked in my Father when I was younger, but can see clearly now.

He will turn the sound on on the camera, he tells me. The sound, of course! But later it will puzzle me – how will the picture sound out the yells of Rhys and I: the pirates of Chapman Parade, so tough that the stones of the driveway don’t hurt our bare feet when we run, our swords in the air? Rhys is the same height as me now, but I scream louder.

Weeks after I wonder – what will arrive? How will my yell move from that black cylinder back into my own hearing? When the photos finally come, I have forgotten that I expected one of those cards that play a sound when you open them – and that I would send it as a birthday gift to my Nanna. It is flat, plays no sound, but it is two pirates – unmistakeable. Was that sound lost then; or later, when I forgot?

by Sparrokei