Everything Is So Political Read Free

too focused on producing today’s prints to even offer a good morning in response.
    We cannot risk exposing the film to any form of light. I step up to the sink and crack open today’s canister, filled with a reel of faces I will never see again. In the total darkness it is only my hands which inform me of my surroundings. Everything becomes a ritual of blindness. The sink is fourteen centimetres from my right hand. The crank to open my canister is fifty-seven centimetres from my left hand. The door is one metre and sixteen centimetres behind me.
    There is a knock at the door.
    â€œRichard?”
    I sigh loud enough for Garrett to hear me through the thick steel door.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œThe prints from yesterday are ready. The warden wants to see you upstairs in an hour.”
    My shoulders slump forward and I set down the canister.
    â€œWhere is Carl?”
    I can hear Garrett mumble under his breath. He’d rather be the one heading upstairs to visit the warden’s heated room. We could see our breath down here if it wasn’t so dark.
    â€œHe’s down at the mailroom. He said he was getting more film for tomorrow.”
    â€œI already got that earlier this morning, though.”
    â€œI know,” Garrett sighs. “He just loves to waste his time down there.”
    I pick up the canister again, testing its weight in my hand. All those faces locked inside, waiting to be released in their new form. Like a flattened butterfly under glass.
    â€œSo you’ll see the warden soon?”
    I crack open the canister listening for any of their voices. My ears are met with only a resounding drip from the other room and Garrett’s foot tapping on the ceramic tiles.
    â€œTell him I’ll be there soon enough.”
    * * *
    The warden stares at me from across the wide walnut desk in front of him, gray eyes shifting to take in yesterday’s gray reproductions. His thick fingers leaf through the pile of photographs. Their mouths are never open. The warden always makes me promise they won’t smile. He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I’ve never had to tell a single one not to smile.
    â€œSo you are coming with us tomorrow?”
    It’s not a question. I stare at a spot just above the warden’s head, my eyes focused on a painting. A winter landscape that operates like a window for this musty room. The true windows here are shuttered and barricaded. The bookshelves are dusty and overstuffed.
    â€œYes.”
    I do not ask where we’re going.
    The painted forest above his head is paralyzed with ice.
    â€œBring your camera. And the other two. Carl and . . . Garrett?”
    I nod.
    â€œYou will need them to carry your equipment, I’m sure.”
    The painting is probably just some cheap print mailed to the prison. No shops out here.
    â€œDo you know where we are going?”
    â€œThe fields?”
    The warden sets down the photos, splaying them out across the bare wood. I do not ask where my photographs go after these meetings in his heated room. Some might say I suffer from a lack of curiosity. They are the ones you will find out there under all the dirt and snow.
    â€œYes, we are going to the fields.”
    * * *
    The snow we walk through shifts like sand. The soldiers in front of us march with weapons in hand, driving the prisoners before them. The prisoners are still in their gray coveralls, uncovered ears red as the markers we spray on abandoned fence posts and fallen telephone poles to mark our path through these empty fields. They carve a path through the snow, which is slowly covered up by the drifting whiteness behind us.
    Carl follows behind me carrying the camera stand. Garrett marches up ahead, stumbling behind the warden’s long strides. I grimace beneath my scarf at his eagerness.
    â€œCan I take the pictures?” Carl says.
    â€œNo, the warden requested I do it. I’m already competing with Garrett.”
    The two of us