One-Hour Photo

By MajelB

9:30 am- Bored. Really, really bored. Only been here for half an hour, and I’m *bored*! Work sucks.

9:35 am- Still bored.

9:38 am- Still bored.

9:40 am- Praying for work.

9:42 am- Oh! Prayers answered. Two rolls of Kodak Gold 35mm, 24 exposure, 200 ISO film. Not that all that really makes a difference, anyway. They all get done the same way.

9:51 am- “I’m sorry, sir. On Sundays, the pharmacy opens at 10… No, sir, you can’t leave your prescription with me. The pharmacist is pretty strict about these things,” I say politely and with a smile. Inside: “This is the PHOTO department. P-H-O-T-O. If I knew *anything* about the pharmacy, don’t you think I’d be back there making ten bucks an hour more?” God, the things I do to put myself through school.

9:53 am- I could try stripping, I suppose. I don’t have a bad body… maybe just hit the gym… I’d make a shit load more money… Hmmm… I wonder if Le Girls is hiring…

9:57 am- GAH! Shitgoddamnmother… Is it *really* necessary to make a *water bottle* child proof?

9:59 am- Ooh… The intern pharmacist just walked by… scrumptious.

10:01 am- Ooh… There he is strutting back to the pharmacy. Damn, but what a fine ass! I’ve never seen anything so complimented by a lab coat…

10:05 am- I swear to God… If I hear one more Enya song, I’m gonna shoot myself.

10:07 am- Ah, crap. Just polished off my triple grande café mocha. Oh, well. It was ice cold by now, anyway. It’s friggin freezing back here.

10:09 am- Okay, pictures are done. Let’s see… hmm… Grand Canyon. Cool.

10:10 am- Bored again. If anyone ever tells you that it takes a whole entire hour to process a roll of film, they’re probably lying to you. It’s a remarkably simple process, actually. It all has to do with the reaction silver has when light hits… Never mind. Ooh! A customer!

10:13 am- So, this no-good teenage hoodlum (here’s *me* talking. HA!) walks up to the counter. “Yeah, I have some film I want developed,” she says, as she holds out a roll of Fuji 24 exposure, 200 speed, 35mm film. Hmph. No kidding. Would never have guessed. But, of course, I smile and make nice.

Okay, Miss… Fraiser. Let’s see if you remembered to use your flash indoors.

10:15 am- “¯ Love, love me do. You know I love you. I’ll always be true. So pleee-aaa-sss-eee… love me do-o.¯”

10:21 am- Aww… what a nice customer. So sweet. Out to make people smile. I love retail.

10:23 am- I hate retail.

10:25 am- Standing by the film dryer to keep warm. Oh, look. The Fraiser film is rolling out. Hmm… Contrast actually looks good. Holding the negative strip up to the light. Not bad…

10:27 am- “¯Here I am a-running the film, running the film, running the film. Here I am a-running the film, earl-y in the mor-ning.¯”

10:35 am- The Starbucks across the street is calling my name. I can see it through the front window, the bright green letters spelling out the word C-O-F-F-E-E, taunting me. This is what I get for staying up all night messing around on the internet. Yawn. Want caffeine desperately.

10:36 am- Okay, sifting through the Fraiser prints. Just checking for quality. Honest. No, really. I swear, this has nothing to do with the fact that I’m bored out of my… Hel-lo… It’s about time we got some good ‘people’ shots. Hmm… let’s see. Bar-b-que. Back yard. A bunch of people who look nothing alike. Friends, then. A gathering of friends. Nifty.

Big black guy with a gold… thingy… on his… man, what cult is he *in*? Tall guy, smiling. Military hair cut. Probably Air Force, like everybody else around here. Gray hair. Older, but built. Blonde chick, tall, very cute. Hanging out with little Miss Fraiser. Cozy. Very sweet. Across the table from Blondie, there’s another woman. Petite-looking, brunette… same short hair style. Yep. Must be military. Next to her, real cutie. With glasses that bring out his bright blue eyes. Great smile. Off to the side, portly-but-solid bald guy. Teddy-bear comes to mind. I can’t help but smile as I flip through the first few…

Uh.

Hmm.

Well.

Something tells me this camera’s been around.

Same people. Absolutely certain they’re Air Force, now. But that is *not* Colorado. Middle East maybe? Afghanistan? Iraq?

But, how come the sky looks so *green*?

You know what? Chances are, the colors are just a little off. Compensate with a little more magenta here, increase the density just a tad there…

10:42 am- Okay, that is just not right. The sky looks better, but now the trees are a wonky greenish pink. Whites were truer in the original… wherever these pictures were taken, it was a place where the sky really *is* green…

Okay, here’s what I think.

*I* think these four people… the gray-haired guy, the blonde, the big black guy, and the cutie with the glasses… I think they’re on another planet, which is why they’re all decked out in fatigues. And I think that big… circle… thing… in the background put them there. Otherwise, what’s the point of it being there? It must have a purpose.

They probably started off at Cheyene Mountain or Peterson, or something… some top-secret facility. All very hush-hush. NORAD would fit the bill.

Flip, flip… Shit, they’re armed to the teeth! Guess big guns and grenades could come in handy when exploring an alien planet. I guess you never know what to expect. Prudent. Although, they don’t really look like they’re too worried. I mean, someone *is* taking pictures, after all. Most of the time, it’s the cutie with the glasses. He’s probably the smart one. He’s usually the one behind the camera. And he isn’t carrying a big gun like the others, just a pistol in a hip holster.

I bet they’ve been to this planet before, so they aren’t concerned about anything. They’re walking and smiling… like they’re just on a weekend hike.

Maybe… Ooh! *Maybe* they’re going back to visit the natives. They are actually *visiting aliens*. Cool! So very, very cool!

They’re a crack team of galactic explorers, traveling around, forming alliances with alien races, finding and learning about alien technology. Hell, we probably have them to thank for plasma screens, or something.

Ooh! Ooh! And there has to be a *reason* why they’re traveling, why they’re looking for allies and weapons and stuff. In their galactic meanderings, they’ve probably managed to piss a few people off. Maybe, they’re looking for stuff with which to protect good old Earth.

Come to think of it, there *were* those so-called ‘rogue meteors’… Those two big fireballs a few years ago… The government came out with this story about having  to launch warheads to break up some meteors that were going to impact in nasty spots. Seems plausible enough, I suppose. But still…

Maybe they weren’t meteors at all, but alien motherships poised to destroy the planet.

Much more interesting than ‘rogue meteors.’

And this team… these four people… *they’re* probably the ones that blew them up. Maybe they were even *on* the ships. I mean, any aliens that would be smart enough to build huge-ass spaceships, would undoubtedly be smart enough to design shields that would be able to repel anything *we* could throw at them.

So, these guys have saved the world.

I wonder how many times? Maybe the planet has come within a hairsbreadth of being destroyed dozens of times, and no one ever knew. Well, no one without the proper clearance, anyway.

Heavy.

Hmph. And maybe pigs will sprout wings and fly outta my ass. Man, I really need to lay off the No-Doze… get more sleep. I’m getting delusional.

They were probably just off playing war games in Turkey, or something. And that ring was probably just some random artifact left over from the Byzantine Empire. (Hey, I’m developing photos to *put myself through school*, remember? I aced Honors World History.)

10:52 am- Familiar-looking petite brunette just walked through the door. She’s in uniform… a Major, with medical insignia. I can tell she’s heading my way the minute she comes in. You kinda develop a sixth sense about this sort of thing. You can always tell which customers are going to make a bee-line for the photo desk. Sad, I know.

Sure enough, she steps up to the counter, just as I knew she would. I smile and say hello. The “What Can I Do For You?” spiel.  She smiles back. Sweet lady. “My daughter dropped off some film earlier…?” she says. I grab the Fraiser envelope and hand it too her.

Major Fraiser gives me a “How’d you know?” look. I smile, and just tell her that it’s been really slow. That satisfies her, and she smiles back, handing me her credit card. I ring her up and she opens the envelope, curious.

She smiles as she thumbs through them, and I can’t help but grin a bit to myself. They all seemed so happy together…

As she gets further through the pile, though, her smile begins to fade. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops. The gentle sifting becomes an almost panicked race to see them all. When she gets through them, she suddenly remembers that I’m still standing right there. She composes herself and plasters on a very fake grin.

She opens her mouth as if to say something, but closes it again, turning to leave instead. She gets two steps before raising a finger and spinning back to face me.

“You… uh… have some sort of… confidentiality policy, right? I mean, you can’t tell anyone what’s in the pictures you develop?” she asks, a little unsure of herself.

Interesting question.

“Of, course,” I say. “Besides, I’m usually so busy back here, I don’t even *see* anything anyway.” I put on my sweet smile, and she seems to relax. She thanks me, and makes her way to the front door.

10:55 am- Screw *school*… I wonder if the Air Force has a ‘Department of Photographic Processing’. Maybe they’re hiring. Would probably make for some interesting mind-wanderings…

And maybe my little theory wasn’t so far off-base after all…

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