At first there was nothing, just Sara and the old man holding hands in the day room.
And then something flashed in front of her eyes, like a subliminal image embedded in a film. And then another image, too quick to perceive. And then another, until it was like watching photographs flipped in fast motion in front of her eyes.
The same room. Tables. Chairs. Residents sitting facing each other. Their faces keep changing, though. Like the letters on an old-fashioned electric noticeboard clacking over. Stanley watches it all, stock still, a man in a time-lapse video.
Stanley gets up, and the perspective shifts to his own. A point-of-view camera that floats six feet above the ground, weaving through the chairs and tables of the room, towards the exit. It stops at the first resident’s room and pushes open the door.
‘Show me, Stanley,’ whispered Sara.
The room is small and, impossibly, filled with sand. At the other end, waves lap hypnotically, the ocean’s edge coinciding with the far wall, the water the colour of jade. Rocks refract through the endless ripples undulating across the surface. The camera looks up at a tent of brilliant blue sky. Nearby, a family sits on folding chairs. Stanley lifts his hand experimentally in front of the camera. It is that of a little boy.
‘These are old memories, Stanley,’ coaxed Sara, gently.
The camera retreats from the room, closing the door behind it. It approaches the next and pushes the door open. It is now looking down at a child’s shoes as they climb up wooden steps and walk on to the stage. Teachers sit on plastic chairs, backs to the wall, looking out over an auditorium, clapping. A trophy is handed directly to the camera, and a teenage hand accepts it. Proud parents look back from the audience.
‘Still too old,’ breathed Sara. ‘Concentrate. Where did you see the necklace?’
The perspective drifts out of the room again, moving down the corridor, doubling back on itself, a bewildered person lost in a maze.
‘You can do it,’ said Sara. ‘Let me see.’
The camera bobs for a second, unsure, and then floats towards another room and opens the door. The ceiling of the room is filled with eyes staring down, wide open, all-seeing. The rest of the room is covered with framed photographs, every surface square inch is taken. The same boy and girl stare out of each picture. The camera floats through and bobs near the window, partially hiding behind the curtain. Outside, a woman in a wheelchair is being pushed up a ramp leading into the rear of an expensive-looking people carrier. There is writing on the side of the vehicle, but the perspective is rack-focus, everything blurred, as if the image has been smudged. The only clear point is the woman, who stands out in startling definition, the centre of Stanley’s world. The ramp is removed, and the doors close, the driver moving back to the front of the vehicle, passing the indistinct blobs of writing on the side of the van.
‘Please remember, Stanley,’ urged Sara.
The camera breaks its tracking of the man and bobs back to the writing, which remains indistinct. The engines start, and it begins to move, cruising forward, about to leave Stanley’s world for ever. And then, for a split second, almost as if the camera has squeezed tight and wrung the words from the image, the lettering becomes clear.
Sara stood up, breaking contact with Stanley.
‘Thank you, Stanley,’ she said.
But his eyes were staring at the floor again.