(Runner-up 2025 Newcastle Herald Short Story Competition)
Harrison puts down his drink, takes a corn chip from the dish, then points it at me while looking around the room to see if anyone is listening. He leans forward, with mouth crunching, and says,
‘You’re telling me your phone takes weird photos?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
His next chip is dipped into a bowl of hummus. ‘Fine, I’ll be literal. You reckon it’s haunted.’
‘I didn’t use that word either. Why are you twisting this?’
Harrison lifts his Pepsi from the coffee table and leans into the café sofa. I thought if there was anyone I could tell, it would be him. It’s proving to be a mistake.
‘Where’d you get this phone again?’
‘It was left in a lecture theatre,’ I say, looking at the table.
‘So, you stole it.’
‘I didn’t steal it.’
‘But you kept it. There’d have to be a lost and found at uni. People lose phones and other stuff all the time.’
On the table’s surface beside my sweating Coke is a sleek dark phone. There’s no logo or name to tell the brand. When I found it, there wasn’t a PIN or password. I’d had an iPhone as a teen and my very first one as a kid was an Android. This doesn’t appear to be either. I have no way to find the owner, as the address book is empty.
I offer it to him, saying, ‘You’re missing the point, Harry. Look at the photos on it.’
Harrison grins at me. ‘Is it full of Tinder shots from the last owner?’
‘No, you pervert. It was blank. All the pictures are ones I’ve taken.’
‘If that’s the case, then Grindr?’
I ignore him until he reluctantly slides forward to take the phone from me.
‘See if you notice anything weird in the pictures.’
Harrison carelessly swipes through the pages. ‘All I see is a stack of panoramas. And not particularly good ones,’ he sniffs.
‘Get stuffed!’
He pauses for a beat. ‘This Anzac Walk one’s okay. I like the storm coming in from the west. Shame about the woman with the bag. The red detracts from the overall bleakness of the shot.’
‘Now you’re getting warm. Stop rushing and look carefully at the others. You might need to zoom in to pick up on it.’
Harrison puts his bottle down so he can use both hands. Soon, he stops changing the screen.
‘What’s with the chick and the bag in each of them?’
I snatch the phone back. ‘We got there in the end!’
I thought I’d be relieved when someone else saw it. Instead of relief, my spine is tingling. At least I know I’m not crazy.
Harrison’s now shaking his head. ‘My man, if you’re going to take sneaky pics of girls, pick chicks our age. I didn’t know you had a thing for mums.’
‘She’s never in the scene. I’ve never seen this woman. Ever.’
‘You’re delusional.’
‘Fine! I’ll show you.’ I get up and signal for Harrison to follow me. Just to highlight his sense of the futility of it all, he delays finishing his drink.
Once we’re out on Hunter Street, I hand him the phone. ‘You try it.’
Harrison takes it and sets it to selfie mode.
‘Not of yourself, you idiot.’
‘Why not? It should work if there’s a scene behind me.’
A guy approaching us moves aside to not be in the shot. Harrison blows kisses to the camera while pressing the button multiple times.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What’s it look like? Filling your phone with classy pictures.’
He stops and we look at the series together. There’s Harrison pulling idiotic faces with a mid-week Newcastle background of buses and people on footpaths going about their business. There’s no woman with a red bag in any of them.
‘Who’s the idiot now?’ Harrison smirks and hands the phone back. Feeling deflated, I follow him back into the café.
‘I don’t get it,’ I say as we take our seats. ‘Every photo I’ve taken has this woman in it. Always wearing the same clothes and with that bright backpack.
‘You still buying your dope from Hussein?’ Harrison asks, as he watches a girl in a tank top approach the café’s counter. ‘You might want to change your dealer.’
The phone rests in my hand like an indictment, its featureless surface angering me for the first time. I turn it over in my palm as Harrison shakes his head. When he leans to take more chips, he rolls his shoulders.
‘What was that?’ I ask.
‘Nothing. It’s just cold in here.’
I glance to the open café door and the stark summer reaching inside. There are ceiling fans, but no air conditioning in the room. A thought comes to my mind. I flick the screen back on, open the camera, and point it at him.
Harrison raises an eyebrow.
‘Maybe it only works when I use it,’ I say, although no longer believing myself.
His pale tongue pokes out at the sound of the fake shutter. Before I get to enlarge the picture to full size, I drop the phone as though electrocuted.
Harrison snorts and says, ‘Nice theatrics!’
He leans over to scoop it up by his foot, yet before taking hold, he whips around and lunges off the sofa, knocking the bowl in his path and spraying chips across the floor.
A pair of coffee drinkers glare at us.
My friend turns to me ashen faced, his mouth frozen in a soundless scream. Harrison’s childish expression on the screen looks up at us from the ground, while behind him in the photo the red bag woman rests a hand on his shoulder and looks straight at the camera with inky eyes.
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