What does it mean? Brushing my hair with a flat, heavy palm, I thought about it, for a while. It means that you wish you could write to some office, somewhere, and ask them to replace this non-functional thing, this sad and shattered thing, with one that works. That does what it's supposed to do. What is a photograph supposed to do? That didn't make sense.
I sat down, and sighed, lightly and almost silent. The tea was hot, in the cup, on my hand, against my lip, it felt good. I didn't think about anything, except maybe that heat and the smell, and the taste that was waiting for me, but it was just a little too hot. I put it down on the table. And then I picked it back up and put it on a coaster, put it in its right place.
What was the right place for the photograph? In a frame, of course, everyone knows that. I looked at the mantelpiece, where the frames are. I mean, where the photographs are, as they should be. In pride of place, as they say. Is this pride, that I am feeling? I don't think so. I have known pride, I am sure of it. But it was just one little portion amongst all the other feelings that have crowded in and tussled around and poured out of me in the long time that I have known feelings; I cannot fully account for it, this little bit, this pride. It has been a long time, or no time at all, I can't decide. But this is not pride, to look at the mantlepiece, quietly, with tea.
And you, you are not a feeling; and you are not the photograph, but it is a photograph of you. Does this mean that you are the broken thing, which I would have replaced, which I would sit and write a letter of complaint over, or just a plaintive, humble request, to get a new one, a working one? Except that this cannot happen, of course. This is what it means to say: 'on condition of.' It means you don't get a choice in the matter. There is nothing to be done, and why cry over things like that? Nobody knows.
This does not sound quite correct, in any case. You are not a photograph, this or any other, and you were not a broken thing. Of that I am quite sure; as sure as one can be on such matters, at any rate.
Sipping, standing, I walk over to you, to the photograph, to the mantelpiece, I mean, and think a little harder; though none more clearly, I must say. For a thing to be broken, it cannot do that which you wish it would do. It does not live up to that desire you had for it. When you say 'this is broken, I want a new one,' you are saying or trying to say that you had something you wanted, and you hoped the thing would fulfil that want, or help you fulfil it; but it didn't. It let you down. Does a photograph let you down, or not? I am not sure.
I am looking at you and thinking that, it was a cold day, I didn't have something so nice as this warm tea to drink and make me feel more cosy. What did I have, except you of course, but you cannot drink a person so that they will make you feel nourished and warm, even if you would like to do that. You had a coat, long and made of like felt, in green, and you held it around yourself quite closely. I wonder if it worked for you, or if it was another thing that was broken, like a lot of things, it seems to me, now that I think of it. It is best not to think of it, though.
And on that day you said this: 'Let's sit inside, by the window.' And I said, 'Yes.' So we did, we sat inside, and read, and had something to eat, and watched the outside world and all the things that happen out there, if you watch for them, or just anyway, even if nobody at all is watching. The grey sky wasn't saying anything, no matter how closely I looked, then, or now. I am looking quite closely, but there is nothing.
You are on the left, right at the edge, the cutting edge of the frame that I am glad did not cut you, because I can only imagine that it would hurt somehow. The window shows the sky, and a path, and an old man with a bicycle, and a river, big cold grey river, it is quite forlorn. But you are well-lit and smiling. Thank goodness.
And what else could I want? Is this not my desired object? Small and rectangular, compact, not at all heavy, ideal in many ways, so it seems. I pick it up, not hot like the tea, I can hold it quite comfortably in my hand. I can put it down without a coaster, it will not make a mark. That is some kind of happiness, I think, obscurely: not to leave a mark.
Perhaps it is a broken thing because I cannot understand why it is or is not broken. Perhaps it is nothing at all, just a picture, like in a picture book, it's not a big deal, why worry about it. Looking at it, again, once more, I think that now is just now, with this picture, and then was nothing at all, like when a child asks 'what was there before the big bang?' and I say 'oh, well, I don't know...'
Because of course, this isn't you, it is not you I am looking at now, not really. I don't know where you are, but it is not here, in the living room, drinking tea with me. Sitting down, I think that I have to remember to send my uncle a birthday card, and that the clocks go back again soon, isn't that strange, and autumn is such a lovely season. And thinking is like a thing which is always ahead of you, and you can hear it moving but you cannot see it or touch it, like a game, a children's game in the dark. And then I wonder what that means, but I don't think too long about it, as my tea is going cold, and I do not like cold tea.
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