Mementos

Berlin, Germany, June 2013

The sun had long set but the summer heat and the accompanying humidity lingered. We'd wandered along a dusty, half-abandoned street, grabbed a beer, made friends with an international group of gays, met the prettiest boy/aspiring chef I'd ever seen, and now, we were trying to squeeze three bodies into a photoautomat meant for two tiny people.

We were caught off guard for the first two shots. Prepared for the next two, we held our breath and our poses in the cramped space and gave the camera our widest smiles. We tumbled out less than twenty seconds later, laughing, uncurling, stretching.

From the side of the booth, the machine whirred and whirred and eventually spat out a black and white strip no longer than the length of my palm. The first two were of comical wide-eyed humans with silent shrieks. In the other two, we looked like we were drunk on a happy secret and our eyes held deep amusement. The booth looked spacious - comfortable - from the shoulders up. No one would've been able to guess the collection of tensed muscles that held our position together.

Back home, we split the strip. My fellow couchsurfer and I kept one each, and the host kept the remaining two.

I slipped mine into my purse. It remained there the whole time, until recently when it fell out as I pulled a card from the same compartment. I only belatedly realised it.

Funny how a tiny black and white instaprint can hold so much memories. And how the loss of it brings those memories rushing to the fore.