Bakersfield High School Bleachers

He took his first photograph.

Two figures sat in the top row.

Julian lowered the camera. A boy in a dark suit and a girl in a pale formal dress were visible against the night sky. They sat close together but did not touch. The girl wore a wilted corsage. The boy held something square and white in his lap.

“The campus is closed,” Julian called.

Neither moved.

He raised the camera and zoomed in.

The couple now sat three rows lower.

Julian checked the first image. In it, they remained at the top.

He took another photograph.

The flash illuminated row twenty-seven.

The couple sat in row twenty-four.

“Very funny,” Julian said, though nobody had laughed.

The stadium loudspeaker crackled.

A slow dance began to play through layers of static. The melody sounded old enough to have been recorded directly onto dust.

The boy lifted the white square from his lap.

It was a photograph.

Even from the field, Julian recognized himself standing between them.

He packed his camera and headed toward the gate. The gate opened onto the same football field. He tried the opposite exit and stepped once more beneath the bleachers. Each doorway returned him to the place he had left.

The scoreboard switched on.

11:47.

Julian’s watch read 9:16.

Behind him, the camera shutter clicked.

He had removed the battery.

In the new image, the couple sat at the bottom of the bleachers. Between them was an empty seat.

The scoreboard advanced to 11:48.

Julian left the camera on the grass and climbed.

“Who are you?”

The girl raised her head. Her face was pale and indistinct, as if the camera had focused on everything except her. The boy’s features were hidden beneath a darkness no stadium light could reach.

“We waited for the picture,” the girl said.

“What picture?”

“The last one.”

The bleachers groaned.

Couples appeared in every row above them. Some wore narrow suits and ankle-length dresses. Others wore ruffled shirts, velvet jackets, sequins or rented tuxedos from different decades. All sat motionless with empty spaces between them.

Every empty space was exactly wide enough for Julian.

The camera clicked again on the field.

Julian found himself five rows higher.

He stumbled down the steps. The camera clicked. He moved up another five rows.

Each exposure dragged him closer to the waiting couples.

11:51.

“Stop taking pictures!” he shouted.

The boy lifted one hand. A black shutter cable ran from his sleeve, down the rows, across the track and into Julian’s camera.

“Pictures take themselves here,” he said.

Julian pulled at the cable. It came away from the camera but remained attached to his shadow.

The shutter clicked.

He rose another five rows.

The figures surrounding him began to whisper. They repeated fragments of forgotten prom-night promises.

Meet me after the dance.

Wait in the bleachers.

I’ll only be a minute.

We’ll remember this forever.

The girl’s corsage shed one black petal.

“Did no one come back for you?” Julian asked.

“Everyone came back,” she replied. “Just never at the same time.”

The boy turned the photograph over. Names covered the back—hundreds of them, written in different inks. Julian’s name appeared at the bottom.

11:54.

Julian forced himself down the steps. The shutter fired three times in quick succession.

He landed in the top row.

The couple sat beside him.

Far below, the camera rotated upon the tripod without anyone touching it. Its lens tilted upward.

“Smile,” the girl said.

Julian covered his face.

The flash still passed through his hands.

For an instant he saw the stadium as it had existed across many years. Proms unfolded on the field beneath strings of lights. Music changed. Clothes changed. Couples aged between dances, then became young again. At the top of the bleachers, the same boy and girl waited while photographers came and vanished.

Each photographer took the couple’s picture.

Each photographer appeared in the next one.

Julian looked at the black cable fastened to his shadow. He could not cut it, but perhaps he could change what it photographed.

He pulled a small hand mirror from his equipment bag and held it toward the field.

The camera fired.

Its own flash struck the mirror and returned into the lens.

The stadium became white.

The couples screamed as their shadows were burned onto the aluminum benches. The black cable snapped. Music unwound through the loudspeakers in reverse.

Julian ran down the steps while the scoreboard counted backward.

11:57.

11:43.

10:12.

9:17.

He reached the field and smashed the camera against the track. The lens broke. The shutter opened one final time.

The gate led to the parking lot.

Julian drove home without looking in the rearview mirror.

The following morning, the damaged camera sat on his kitchen table.

Its memory card held only one image.