Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

New Orleans #4

My dumb Polaroid camera doesn’t take proper pictures. I’ve tried everything; getting it serviced, replacing the film, etc. And no matter how much I tinker with it, the pictures are always wrong.

I figured out what’s wrong with them, too. This is going to sound weird, but the photos seem to be of things that haven’t happened yet. The last photo I took was of a street musician on Bourbon street and the photo came out with him all bruised and beat up, sporting a cast on his leg. A week later, he looked exactly like the Polaroid I took of him the week before.

There didn’t seem to be any specific or predictable about the time frame; it varied. It was just always “at some point in the future.” Which made my most recent photo particularly problematic...

The image resolves
into a disturbing sight—
my impending death


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(149 words)


Form: Haibun  

Prompt: You find a Polaroid camera that seems to predict the future. It takes some time but it predicts what will happen in that same spot a year after the picture is taken.